1.05 (Beta) Changelog Discussion

[Cybersquirt]

When there are broken quests, I find "balance" to be less important, as it is subjective.  I have already read a few posts from people saying it's too easy.

I care not so much about being challenged in combat, unless it's a superboss.  I care alot when I cannot finish a quest or the plot suddenly leaps ahead.

 

Seems to me there is too much focus on combat balance and I would prefer overall game balance.

[MadDemiurg]

Yeah, I'm kinda fed up with this game. I've been disappointed one too many times. In my first playthrough as my DPS paladin in hard mode, I  first had to stop and wait for a fix after learning the stat inflation bug. After it arrived and I resumed my game I got bored to death because the paladin class was one of the worst paladin designs I've ever seen (just 1 attack ability lmao). That coupled with the fact that chapter 3 was weak and seemed really rushed. Also there was zero challenge and I was steamrolling groups with my party (and epic autoattack paladin lol) at that point.

 

I was really sad as I waited for the game for so long and was actually loved the overall design and feel of the game (dialogue, music, background). I could list 100 negative points, but still the game was special for me. After some time I decided to give it a second go, and went PotD cipher. I had a blast so far... and then mid game (near chapter 3) these patch notes are announced.

 

My PotD cipher was a dual wielding build, focusing on generating focus from fast attacks. I got the two weapon style and draining whip (+2 focus per hit) and Ruffian weapon perk to dual wield stilettos (even got them enchanted). It was a very challenging style as you had to be very careful since he was extremely squishy but very deadly - a very fun glass cannon.

 

In the patch notes it's written: "Draining Whip is now working as intended." 

 

In the beta Draining whip is changed to "increases Focus gain by 33%"

 

It looks almost as if they were too embarassed to state it in the patch notes. This and reducing starting focus from 1/2 of max to 1/4 of max... I mean why go so f*cking hard? Why not 1/3?

 

It's not the nerfs that I care about. It's that if such HUGE changes were required, why did they release it that way? These are not minor tweaks, it RUINED my build midgame. I do not want to use the cheat engine so I'll just continue in this f*cked up state (if I will have the will to). Good job really.

Yeah, "working as intended" part looks weird since it was working exactly per description. It also sucks you can't opt to stay at certain version on steam to finish the game as you started. Try switching to sabers, hard hitting weapons are better for ciphers now and they're under ruffian too (lucky coincidence). Might salvage your build. But I also think they shouldn't do balance changes in "let's halve this and double that" manner. This isn't beta anymore. More careful tuning would be preferable.

[Crucis]

I am sad the patch notes said nothing about fixing No AI option. When I turn off AI I want it to stop finding new targets after it killed its current one until I give it a new target.

 

Also please fix pathfinding during combat. Let characters squeeze between two allied characters easier.

 

^This!!!  It's ridiculous that a character can squeeze between 2 other characters before an encounter begins, but after the first shot is fired, he can't squeeze back thru that same gap! 

 

But also, pathfinding out of combat has its own issues.  The one that really gets me is this.  Say that your party is slowly moving down a narrow passageway in a 2-wide column, and the passageway is too narrow for the characters to move with their normal intervals.  What often happens is that the guys at the back for reasons that make absolutely no sense whatsoever end up squeezing thru the formation and moving in front of the guys in the 1 and 2 positions!  This needs to be fixed.  IMO, no matter what the nature of the paths your party is moving through, the relative positions of the party, 1 thru 6 should remain the same.  The #5 guy should never ever move in front of the party just because the terrain is too narrow for the normal formation.  If that means that the formation has to be strung out more, then it should do so.  The guys at the rear of the formation should always STAY at the rear of the formation unless ordered to do otherwise by a direction action of the player.

[Cybersquirt]

You can stay at a certain version by going into offline mode.  This game, and many others, do not require you play online.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

In the patch notes it's written: "Draining Whip is now working as intended." 

 

In the beta Draining whip is changed to "increases Focus gain by 33%"

 

It looks almost as if they were too embarassed to state it in the patch notes. This and reducing starting focus from 1/2 of max to 1/4 of max... I mean why go so f*cking hard? Why not 1/3?

 

Sawyer has a philosophy of either double it or cut it in half and that appears to have rubbed onto the development team. I believe that comes from Sid Meier. So the 50% focus has been halved to 25% in line with that reasoning. Maybe in the next patch, it will go up slightly. I agree with you that it didn't need such a drastic cut.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Khalid the bear]

It's not the nerfs that I care about. It's that if such HUGE changes were required, why did they release it that way? These are not minor tweaks, it RUINED my build midgame. I do not want to use the cheat engine so I'll just continue in this f*cked up state (if I will have the will to). Good job really.

i would reccomend waiting a few days after 1.05 comes out then go to nexus, there are already mods out there that change the spells they changed in 1.03/1.04 to ther previous versions

[Tigranes]

Yeah, I'm kinda fed up with this game. I've been disappointed one too many times. In my first playthrough as my DPS paladin in hard mode, I  first had to stop and wait for a fix after learning the stat inflation bug. After it arrived and I resumed my game I got bored to death because the paladin class was one of the worst paladin designs I've ever seen (just 1 attack ability lmao). That coupled with the fact that chapter 3 was weak and seemed really rushed. Also there was zero challenge and I was steamrolling groups with my party (and epic autoattack paladin lol) at that point.

 

I was really sad as I waited for the game for so long and was actually loved the overall design and feel of the game (dialogue, music, background). I could list 100 negative points, but still the game was special for me. After some time I decided to give it a second go, and went PotD cipher. I had a blast so far... and then mid game (near chapter 3) these patch notes are announced.

 

My PotD cipher was a dual wielding build, focusing on generating focus from fast attacks. I got the two weapon style and draining whip (+2 focus per hit) and Ruffian weapon perk to dual wield stilettos (even got them enchanted). It was a very challenging style as you had to be very careful since he was extremely squishy but very deadly - a very fun glass cannon.

 

In the patch notes it's written: "Draining Whip is now working as intended." 

 

In the beta Draining whip is changed to "increases Focus gain by 33%"

 

It looks almost as if they were too embarassed to state it in the patch notes. This and reducing starting focus from 1/2 of max to 1/4 of max... I mean why go so f*cking hard? Why not 1/3?

 

It's not the nerfs that I care about. It's that if such HUGE changes were required, why did they release it that way? These are not minor tweaks, it RUINED my build midgame. I do not want to use the cheat engine so I'll just continue in this f*cked up state (if I will have the will to). Good job really.

 

Your 1.04 saves were backed up when you went to 1.05. Roll back the beta patch, set it to Do Not Update, finish your game.

[Cybersquirt]

 

Your 1.04 saves were backed up when you went to 1.05. Roll back the beta patch, set it to Do Not Update, finish your game.

 

 

Steam removed the option to not update (but they can unsubscribe to the beta).  You either play offline or you update on launch.  Dunno when they changed that but I'm off to the Steam boards to see if I can raise some hell about that one.

[Tigranes]

Ugh. Did they again? Steam's 'Stay Offline' used to never work properly, and they only got it to be a bit more reliable the last couple of years. 

 

Steam has always been a pile of steaming potato pie to anybody who doesn't behave like they want you to.

[Khalid the bear]

but theywe got all those shiny achievements

[Cybersquirt]

Ugh. Did they again? Steam's 'Stay Offline' used to never work properly, and they only got it to be a bit more reliable the last couple of years. 

 

Steam has always been a pile of steaming potato pie to anybody who doesn't behave like they want you to.

Yeah.. I just got temp banned (again) for using the term "2 year-old moderators" in a post on the worst things about steam.  Apparently that's an insult    They're so touchy.  I suppose I should have said "13 year old moderators" because a two year old wouldn't know what banning means.

 

Resumes playing offline.  I hate those forums.  I knew I should have gotten a GOG key...

[Luckmann]

When there are broken quests, I find "balance" to be less important, as it is subjective.  I have already read a few posts from people saying it's too easy.

I care not so much about being challenged in combat, unless it's a superboss.  I care alot when I cannot finish a quest or the plot suddenly leaps ahead.

 

Seems to me there is too much focus on combat balance and I would prefer overall game balance.

 

This, actually. I would really prefer it if they spent some time revising and revisiting existing content rather than staring themselves blind on muh balance.

[constantine]

To be honest, class balance is not necessary in a single-player game, but I don't oppose it either, since it goes with the philosophy of the game.

 

 

I wonder if there's any possibility we see more drastic changes, like work on the AI, adding immunities to some bosses, unique monsters.

[Dinky Dino]

but theywe got all those shiny achievements

 

Being in the Beta is nice. I'm waiting on 1.05 for the sorting feature. I'm dying to have it.

[Zwiebelchen]

Holy tank wizards batman!

 

Now they got even stronger... lol.

[sku]

Oh, Aloth, I knew that you're a weird man.

 

 

(screenshot is real).

Edited May 5, 2015 by sku

[Zwiebelchen]

Maybe that's how Iselmyr looks like...

[Bersercker]

Uh, so ciphers will be pretty much like chanters now? Well, thumbs up to all the "balancers" and meta-gamers.

Thought to wait for this patch before continuing my playthrough, but i guess i shouldn't have bothered.

Looks like POE goes the same path as some MMOs, even though it has no multiplayer. "Balancers" will whine "OP", unitl everything becomes bland and boing.

 

I guess next the'll say fighter is OP and lobby for removal of his +defenses class ability. Also, why not unify priest, druid and wizard spells and have them be the same, clearly it will be so much more balanced this way.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Bersercker

[Zwiebelchen]

Uh, so ciphers will be pretty much like chanters now? Well, thumbs up to all the "balancers" and meta-gamers.

Thought to wait for this patch before continuing my playthrough, but i guess i shouldn't have bothered.

Looks like POE goes the same path as some MMOs, even though it has no multiplayer. "Balancers" will whine "OP", unitl everything becomes bland and boing.

 

I guess next the'll say fighter is OP and lobby for removal of his +defenses class ability. Also, why not unify priest, druid and wizard spells and have them be the same, clearly it will be so much more balanced this way.

 

Aren't you overreacting here? All that was changed about ciphers is their starting focus and the focus gain through certain weapons. They are still just as powerful and cheesy as ever. It's just that you can't immediately mind-control and stun-lock three mobs at the beginning of every battle anymore.

 

And seriously, using the blunderbuss pellets to exploit the focus gain was hilariously broken to begin with and I'm glad this is fixed now.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[VahnXIII]

 

Uh, so ciphers will be pretty much like chanters now? Well, thumbs up to all the "balancers" and meta-gamers.

Thought to wait for this patch before continuing my playthrough, but i guess i shouldn't have bothered.

Looks like POE goes the same path as some MMOs, even though it has no multiplayer. "Balancers" will whine "OP", unitl everything becomes bland and boing.

 

I guess next the'll say fighter is OP and lobby for removal of his +defenses class ability. Also, why not unify priest, druid and wizard spells and have them be the same, clearly it will be so much more balanced this way.

 

Aren't you overreacting here? All that was changed about ciphers is their starting focus and the focus gain through certain weapons. They are still just as powerful and cheesy as ever. It's just that you can't immediately mind-control and stun-lock three mobs at the beginning of every battle anymore.

 

And seriously, using the blunderbuss pellets to exploit the focus gain was hilariously broken to begin with and I'm glad this is fixed now.

 

From a fellow player that rolled a Cipher, I agree. Sure, the class is fun and has a ton of utility, but I just got bored with spamming mental binding and Mind Blades while refilling my focus pool with one shot from my blunderbuss. I didn't even min/max for RP reasons. Hence the reason why I'm moving towards wizard. I have to be smart with my resources if I'm to be of any help to my party and the overall experience will be challenging (I'm hoping at least).

 

Ciphers definitely needed to be toned down not because they are OP "compared to other classes" but because they single handedly trivialized a ton of encounters. How Obsidian goes about that, well, that's up to them. I'm sure if people scream loud enough there will be tweaks within future patches.

Edited May 5, 2015 by VahnXIII

[Vanant]

No walk toggle, no patch until IE mod upgrades its version.

 

I can´t imagine my playthrough running everywhere. Actually, I think I´d stopped playing and moved to other games.

 

Maybe It´s a minor thing for many people, but a minor thing you do 100% of the time outside combat. It changes the feeling of the game completely, I can´t believe Obsidian decided to ignore this basic feature. It´s like not adding textures to armors, or leave static animations during combat. It´s the ****ing thing humans do to move from one place to another, for god´s sake.

[Bersercker]

 

Uh, so ciphers will be pretty much like chanters now? Well, thumbs up to all the "balancers" and meta-gamers.

Thought to wait for this patch before continuing my playthrough, but i guess i shouldn't have bothered.

Looks like POE goes the same path as some MMOs, even though it has no multiplayer. "Balancers" will whine "OP", unitl everything becomes bland and boing.

 

I guess next the'll say fighter is OP and lobby for removal of his +defenses class ability. Also, why not unify priest, druid and wizard spells and have them be the same, clearly it will be so much more balanced this way.

Aren't you overreacting here? All that was changed about ciphers is their starting focus and the focus gain through certain weapons. They are still just as powerful and cheesy as ever. It's just that you can't immediately mind-control and stun-lock three mobs at the beginning of every battle anymore.

 

And seriously, using the blunderbuss pellets to exploit the focus gain was hilariously broken to begin with and I'm glad this is fixed now.

 

Well its just that i saw these "chipher OP" threads popping all the time (like "mind blades OP" threads before they were nerfed into oblivion), and here is the result. I too believe they decided to fix "blunderbuss exploit" this way, istead of, say, making blunderbuss shots to count as one hit for purposes of focus gain. But i doubt you'll have enough focus now to cast much more spells than a chanter with focus gain nerfed so much.

 

Imo, that blunderbuss exploit wasn't even a big deal, one could always not exploit it after all.

 

 

I'm sure if people scream loud enough there will be tweaks within future patches.

See, thats what is wrong imo. Balancing based on how loud people scream always leads to medicority. For some unfathomable reason people tend to scream "nerf cipher" much louder than "buff ranger". And ofc its much easier to make cipher to be as boring to play as ranger, than the other way around.

[Zwiebelchen]

Well its just that i saw these "chipher OP" threads popping all the time (like "mind blades OP" threads before they were nerfed into oblivion), and here is the result. I too believe they decided to fix "blunderbuss exploit" this way, istead of, say, making blunderbuss shots to count as one hit for purposes of focus gain. But i doubt you'll have enough focus now to cast much more spells than a chanter with focus gain nerfed so much.

 

Imo, that blunderbuss exploit wasn't even a big deal, one could always not exploit it after all.

 

 

... or they could have just fixed it in a balanced way by basing it on a percentage value of damage dealt, instead of a flat +2 points per damage event. You know, just like they did.

Finally a cipher can use slow weapons other than blunderbusses and still get a good amount of focus. Why do you even complain?

Edited May 5, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Bersercker]

... or they could have just fixed it in a balanced way by basing it on a percentage value of damage dealt, instead of a flat +2 points per damage event. You know, just like they did.

Finally a cipher can use slow weapons other than blunderbusses and still get a good amount of focus. Why do you even complain?

 

Cause they nerfed focus gain across the board just to fix it for one weapon. Also i think cipher will have to use slow and powerful weapons if he wants to get some focus (though it still will be less than with fast weapons currently imo), whereas now in 1.04 all the weapons are perfectly viable.

Edited May 5, 2015 by Bersercker

[Zwiebelchen]

 

... or they could have just fixed it in a balanced way by basing it on a percentage value of damage dealt, instead of a flat +2 points per damage event. You know, just like they did.

Finally a cipher can use slow weapons other than blunderbusses and still get a good amount of focus. Why do you even complain?

 

Cause they nerfed focus gain across the board just to fix it for one weapon. Also i think cipher will have to use slow and powerful weapons if he wants to get some focus (though it still will be less than with fast weapons currently imo), whereas now in 1.04 all the weapons are perfectly viable.

 

 

What? No they aren't. Slow weapons are useless for focus generation in 1.04, as you get a flat point bonus per attack, not a percentage bonus based on damage.

A very slow arbalest hit for 40 damage generates 2 (4 with talent) focus. A blazing fast dual-wield dagger hit for 5 damage generates the same 2 (4 with talent) focus. In the time you can fire an arbalest once, you can hit the enemy 12 times with your dual-wield daggers (actually, I always used dual-wield daggers over the blunderbuss, it's ridicolous how you can sustain a stunlock on 3 enemies at the same time with zero-recovery dual-wield daggers).

 

If you aren't using dual-wield stilettos or a blunderbuss in 1.04, you are doing it wrong. With the 33% change of 1.05, finally you can use all weapons and generate a comparable amount of focus per second. They didn't nerf focus gain "all across the board". They balanced focus gain so that all weapons are equally viable.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Zwiebelchen