Pillars of balancing

[Tanis]

I do find calculating a weapon's usefulness difficult. Knowing the numbers in previous Ad&d titles added a sense of achievement when I was able to see and understand the benefits of my weapon choices. With PoE I feel a bit like I am stumbling around in the dark. Currently I am just putting that down to the fact that I am learning a new system and I hope that in time it will become as familiar to me as Ad&d is. Time will tell.

[Gairnulf]

I think it was in this thread that Gairnulf mentioned something that I think hits the nail on the head in terms of the items. Those different stats are quite important, and as the player sets the difficulty higher, the way the different stats inter-relate becomes more apparent and more interesting, but because there's more granularity in the effects, nothing really strikes a lot of players. The stats really *do* mean something, and even moreso at higher difficulty settings, but strictly speaking, the game does *not* force the players to explore them very much. ...But it's set up to be an extremely difficult game where all of the tinkering would make a huge difference. Converting a number of grazes to hits, for example, can be quite exciting in terms of its effect, but players can win battles with base proficiency with the system, even though the system would be far more rewarding if it required more attention to the stats. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of a game system... Rolemaster? Whatever. I'm talking about the one with all the charts and huge stat breakdowns for crits and fumbles and whatnot. I think that this game is Sawyer's dream of having a highly technical combat system but with compromised difficulty to make it more accessible. I find combat can be fun, but not as much fun as some of the other games I've played.

It was in the "2.03 patch changes teased":

Outside of TWM (which plays considerably different, and better than the base game, if you get in TWM around level 9-10), combat becomes too chaotic to control, but at the same time there is no real reason to try to control it because it's easy enough to win almost every combat with the same couple of tactics which are well known by now.

I think part of the reason the game was so well received was that on Normal it's accessible for people who have never played the IE games, and even seems challenging for them. And that was Josh's goal, as far as I know. Nothing bad about being a casual player, but for people who are interested in the mechanics and in optimizing their party/characters, PoE is often unclear about its own rules, and as an insurance for being unlcear - prefers just being easy enough that you wouldn't investigate the rules. So, for the hardcore players all that remains is PotD, either with a party of only 2-3 members or just solo.

 

Soloing on PotD (with savegames) does require inventiveness, calculations and eventually luck with RNG, so good job there. I'm not even sure if it's possible with every class in the current patch.

 

However, I would prefer a difficulty which would be very difficult with a party of 6 and impossible for soloing. I miss the party - the coordination of actions between party members and the micromanagement in general.

Edited October 24, 2015 by Gairnulf

[mosspit]

I think part of the reason the game was so well received was that on Normal it's accessible for people who have never played the IE games, and even seems challenging for them. And that was Josh's goal, as far as I know. Nothing bad about being a casual player, but for people who are interested in the mechanics and in optimizing their party/characters, PoE is often unclear about its own rules, and as an insurance for being unlcear - prefers just being easy enough that you wouldn't investigate the rules. So, for the hardcore players all that remains is PotD, either with a party of only 2-3 members or just solo.

 

Soloing on PotD (with savegames) does require inventiveness, calculations and eventually luck with RNG, so good job there. I'm not even sure if it's possible with every class in the current patch.

 

However, I would prefer a difficulty which would be very difficult with a party of 6 and impossible for soloing. I miss the party - the coordination of actions between party members and the micromanagement in general.

There are also ways to have difficulty with a full party too. In the form of party composition and possibly other restrictions. I just completed a triple crown playthrough with non-casters and I didn't use a single cc scroll. I like the flexibility of running a themed party through PoTD in which the player can add all sorts of restrictions. And solo is a form of restriction too. The "Difficulty" that you mention seems to imply that only certain party composition can make it through PotD.

 

It also boils down to what kind of gameplay you are comfortable with. PotD simply isn't balanced for solo gameplay and so to get through certain encounters, it will involve pulling and splitting up groups in addition to what you said. For me, I can't associate that with fun but to each his own.

Edited October 24, 2015 by mosspit

[KDubya]

 

It is also similarly blatantly obvious in PoE that superb weapons are better than exceptional, fine and normal weapons. In PoE's damage bonus from quality enchantment already calculated in description, where in IE games you actually need to do the math by yourself (but as damages are smaller and damage bonuses are integers the math isn't that hard for one hit, but math becomes more complex when weapon gives character additional attacks then its much harder to tell how much damage character can do in one combat round, especially in late game where your character can achieve maximum number of attacks per combat round).

The math in the IE games is easier for me, because the values are immutable: 2d4+3 will always equal something in the range 5-11.

In PoE, a weapon's min/max damage varies depending on:

1) whose inventory it's in - the same fine sword will have different min/max damage in Eder's inventory and in Aloth's.

2) whether or not it's equipped

And you call that easier than the IE games? Also, as you say yourself, this doesn't take into account additional damage multipliers. For example, the "slaying kith 1.25x" I'll have to calculate on my own, if I know what I should apply it to in the first place (which I honestly don't know).

 

Regarding weapon damage per round being more difficult to calculate in the IE games due to multiple attacks - quite the opposite. It's in PoE where it's more difficult to calculate the time between attacks, because you have to know:

1. the number of frames for attack (for the specific weapon)

2. the number of frames for recovery

3. a modifier coming from the weapon setup - single weapon/weapon&shield/dual wield/two-handed

4. the modifier from Dexterity (in %)

5. the modifiers from weapon enchantments and positive/negative afflictions

6. modifiers to recovery coming from your armor

7. possibly other things I'm unaware of

8. Then you need to know in what order do you apply the percentage and multiplicative modifiers. No one knows that as far as I'm aware.

 

All that in order to know how many attacks per second you have (or how many seconds per attack, no matter). As you see, a lot more complicated than knowing you have 2/3 attacks per round in the IE games.

 

These calculations would be nearly impossible to do on-the-fly if Obsidian had documented all this info. And as we know, they never have. Whatever info we have is from players who have been hacking PoE's code and conducting their own experiments. For D&D it's enough to read D&D rulebooks at least, no decompiling .dlls is required, heh. So, after all this, the IE games' weapon damage is more difficult to read? Weapon descriptions are more difficult to read? Lol.

 

No. D&D was made for people playing PnP, with dice, and face to face. Whatever calculations were needed there, they only involve integers and absolute values (no percentages). It's meant to be used by people doing maths without calculators. To know your precise damage and speeds in PoE which was supposed to have a simple system, you need an Excel spreadsheet calculator.

 

That is why I say again - PoE's whole implementation of RtwP is profoundly and irredeemably botched (to refrain from using a stronger word), and should best be redesigned from the ground up for PoE2 with the goal that it should be possible for players to quickly gauge the quality of items and their chances to inflict damage vs an opponent.

 

And most difficult math in PoE is lash damage because it is calculated as it is.  But other wise you usually don't need to do any maths only look if weapon has additional damage multiplier (like from slaying enchantment).

Speaking about the "slaying" modifier - what is this modifier applied to? The base damage values, or the damage values adjusted for whoever is holding the weapon? And please give me a source for the info, because I haven't seen it anywhere.

 

 

 

The math is really straightforward, not sure what the issue is??????

 

All damage modifiers are additive and affect the base damage. All the damage adders are the same - +25% from Might = +25% from slaying = +25% from whatever. You just add them all up and then apply to the base damage. Lashes are applied differently but follow the simple rule of having one is better than not.

 

For any casual player "bigger numbers are better" is about as simple as it gets

 

The percentage system allows for small increases, especially with speed. It is much better to have a +20% speed enchantment than to have an extra attack that doubles your damage output like AD&D had.

 

Tabletop D&D had to be useable with simple dice based on a system of turns. PoE is computer based in real time, the computer understands the percentages even if the players don't.

 

At the end of the day it is a role playing game, use the Blade of the Endless Paths because you cleared an entire dungeon for it and t looks cool instead of it does 0.034% more damage per second.

[Guest 4ward]

 

for me, items in BG2 were unique because the player had to give up something to use them. If you wanted to use equalizer you couldn't be an evil guy, but neutral. As long as there's alternatives it doesn't really hurt the goldilock ego either, you can always give carsomyr to keldorn or keep it and put proficieny points. I gave a two-handed sword to Minsc even though he was at the start proficient with two-weapon style, but i kept him wielding a 2h sword up to the end and during level-ups gave him the proficiecy pts. There were enough items in BG2 to make everyone happy.

 

There was also crafting in BG2 if you think of the dwarf in Athkatla who forged special items. Compare that to PoE's enchantment/crafting materials which you find on every corner, then click with your mouse on enchant or craft and that's it, easy as 1+1 as if you'd make a cup of coffee, where's the special feeling of creating something unique? And where does that leave the special maerchants in a game? It doesn't help that if you could equip your party with toothpicks instead of special weapons it wouldn't make much difference since your full and rested party has so many abilities/spells the enemy doesn't stand a chance. It doesn't also help that the player can enchant as good weapons as he/she'll get if he slayed a boss enemy. And i freely admit that i still don't know which armour i should have Eder equipped with, i actually returned to his saints armour because of the second chance and enchanted it but i'm not sure if that was a good idea. So, i'm carrying around stuff which i probably wouldn't need to because i can't tell if dr is more important than speed just as much i can't tell if i should cast something if a char is disabled for 4,2 sec.

 

I think restrictions can be fun, ovecoming them challenging, screwing up things on your first run then learning and adapting on your subsequent playthroughs. And Bioware limited what you could do but gave alternatives. The systems were good, perhaps they were a little bit flawed but they were good and they stand the test of time.

[Gairnulf]

The "Difficulty" that you mention seems to imply that only certain party composition can make it through PotD.

Or rather, "compositions". I certainly don't think that we can both have a challenging game and keep the "every character should be viable" rule satisfied, because this was one of the design goals.

 

It also boils down to what kind of gameplay you are comfortable with. PotD simply isn't balanced for solo gameplay and so to get through certain encounters, it will involve pulling and splitting up groups in addition to what you said. For me, I can't associate that with fun but to each his own.

I'm soloing with a wizard - extra hard in the beginning of the game. I haven't seen anyone soloing the game with a wizard and I wonder if it's possible at all. Also, since everyone is taking Moon Godlike for solo playthroughs, for the free healing, I decided to go with an elf.

 

 

The math is really straightforward, not sure what the issue is??????

 

All damage modifiers are additive and affect the base damage. All the damage adders are the same - +25% from Might = +25% from slaying = +25% from whatever. You just add them all up and then apply to the base damage. Lashes are applied differently but follow the simple rule of having one is better than not.

 

For any casual player "bigger numbers are better" is about as simple as it gets

 

The percentage system allows for small increases, especially with speed. It is much better to have a +20% speed enchantment than to have an extra attack that doubles your damage output like AD&D had.

Do you mind post a source for your claims? The percentage system does allow for small increases indeed, but what follows from that is that they are hard to calculate, and what's the worst - since they're percentages, they are different for every character in your party.

 

It's a hell to calculate at a glance! What is my use for rules which only the computer can use for calculations? I might as well be playing Dragon Age Inquisition or a similar game which requires no thinking whatsoever.

  

You just add them all up and then apply to the base damage.

It's all so simple apparently. Then would you help me out, I don't know how much is my attack speed:

My solo play wizard:

Level 4 wizard

Dexterity: 10

Armor: Simple Clothing (0 recovery modifier)

Weapons equipped: Hatchet / Buckler

 

And my first character:

Level 10 rogue

Dexterity: 19 (+27% action speed)

Armor: Jack of Wide Waters (-20% recovery speed)

Equipped items: Boots of Speed (+3 move speed) < whatever that means, it's not clear if it has an impact on attack/recovery

Weapons: I alternate between dual wielding rapiers and dual wielding sabres. We won't take into account any speed upgrades they may have.

 

Additionally, I have Fontanero's Rapier equipped. It has base damage 12-17 pierce, adjusted to 14-20. Why is it adjusted to 14-20? My might is 19, which should give me +27% Damage and Healing. And not only that, I also have and Exceptional quality enchantment on the rapier, which supposedly gives it another +30% damage. If these are additive like you say, then I should have a total increase of +57% damage for this weapon.

 

First, I want to see how someone calculates +57% without a calculator, because everything is so easy to calculate, right, what could be the problem. Second, because apparently it's so easy, I don't understand why is the adjusted value 14-20? 57% of 12 is 6.84 and 57% of 20 is 11.4. Why isn't my damage 19-31, assuming that I should be rounding up to the nearest whole number instead of always rounding down? Please someone explain that.

 

 

At the end of the day it is a role playing game, use the Blade of the Endless Paths because you cleared an entire dungeon for it and t looks cool instead of it does 0.034% more damage per second.

No thanks, I want to use the better equipment which requires me to be able to tell which equipment is better. Not being able to tell that easily is a fault in the game's design.

 

There was also crafting in BG2 if you think of the dwarf in Athkatla who forged special items. Compare that to PoE's enchantment/crafting materials which you find on every corner, then click with your mouse on enchant or craft and that's it, easy as 1+1 as if you'd make a cup of coffee, where's the special feeling of creating something unique? And where does that leave the special maerchants in a game? It doesn't help that if you could equip your party with toothpicks instead of special weapons it wouldn't make much difference since your full and rested party has so many abilities/spells the enemy doesn't stand a chance. It doesn't also help that the player can enchant as good weapons as he/she'll get if he slayed a boss enemy.

 

Very true.

 

 

 

And i freely admit that i still don't know which armour i should have Eder equipped with, i actually returned to his saints armour because of the second chance and enchanted it but i'm not sure if that was a good idea. So, i'm carrying around stuff which i probably wouldn't need to because i can't tell if dr is more important than speed just as much i can't tell if i should cast something if a char is disabled for 4,2 sec.

I read that you're best off using the heaviest armor on characters who will wear armor, and no armor at all on characters who will rely on speed. That's because going from 0 to 35% negative recovery modifier is far worse than the move from 35% to 50%.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Gairnulf

[KDubya]

If you care that much about the numbers use a calculator.

 

If you absolutely need the bestest gear at all times maybe Diablo is a better genre for you.

 

The increased base damage displayed includes bonuses from Might only, it's a display problem.

 

Again the simple answer is bigger numbers are better then smaller numbers for damage and faster is better than slower. If you really, really need to know  then go record the game at 30 fps video and count frames. I can happily go to my grave without ever knowing exactly how many frames my character attacks at.

[mosspit]

Or rather, "compositions". I certainly don't think that we can both have a challenging game and keep the "every character should be viable" rule satisfied, because this was one of the design goals.

Oh, I do not think that difficulty and flexibility in party composition are completely mutually exclusive. By definition, being "difficult" would mean that not EVERY party composition will succeed. However, a line can be drawn. One need not depend entirely on the developer to impose difficulty, instead the player can impose his/her own restrictions. There are ways to make a playthrough more difficult. Simply doing a ToI, or imposing a rest limit can lead to a very different experience even with a full party.

 

I'm soloing with a wizard - extra hard in the beginning of the game. I haven't seen anyone soloing the game with a wizard and I wonder if it's possible at all. Also, since everyone is taking Moon Godlike for solo playthroughs, for the free healing, I decided to go with an elf.

The way I see it, it seems that your decisions for your current playthrough is more externally driven than otherwise. Wizard chosen because you haven't seen someone else solo with it. Elf chosen because everyone is using Moon Godlike. I guess everyone have their own reasons for doing a playthrough a certain way.

[Elerond]

+27% to action speed increases your character's DPS +27%

-20% to recovery time increases your recovery time 20% and as base your action is split 50/50 between attack and recovery, which means that it decreases your DPS 10%

+25% to damage increases your DPS 25%.

1.2x attack speed multiplier increases your DPS 10% because of that 50/50 split between attack and recovery time.

+3 to movement speed adds +3 to characters movement speed which make them move faster from point a to point b in combat mode, it don't effect action speed anyway. 

 

Also higher base damage is better against high DR enemies.

High action speed gives you more ability get more on hit effects (like DR reduction, stun, graze to hit, hit to critical), which usually make it more effective choice against enemies with low DR.

 

And only thing that you need to calculate is which weapon gives you higher DPS increase..

[Gairnulf]

+27% to action speed increases your character's DPS +27%

-20% to recovery time increases your recovery time 20% and as base your action is split 50/50 between attack and recovery, which means that it decreases your DPS 10%

+25% to damage increases your DPS 25%.

1.2x attack speed multiplier increases your DPS 10% because of that 50/50 split between attack and recovery time.

+3 to movement speed adds +3 to characters movement speed which make them move faster from point a to point b in combat mode, it don't effect action speed anyway.

A percentage is always a percentage "of something". What times, in seconds, do these percentages result in. That's what I want to know.

 

Also higher base damage is better against high DR enemies.

Isn't higher base damage always better than lower base damage?

 

High action speed gives you more ability get more on hit effects (like DR reduction, stun, graze to hit, hit to critical), which usually make it more effective choice against enemies with low DR.

How do I calculate my action speed in seconds?

 

And only thing that you need to calculate is which weapon gives you higher DPS increase..

I assume you are omitting "...vs the enemy in question"? Because you have things various damage multipliers that take effect vs a different combination of enemy.

 

My point this whole time is that the game's interface doesn't provide an easy way to calculate your damage and speed and decide what weapon is better.

[brindle88]

The whole damage reduction concept I feel has made a lot of the weapons redundant. Towards of the end of my path of the dammed game my fighters never used the single hand melee weapons, and they where the really best ones fully enchanted like the stunning hammer and that flale. I was constantly hitting for 7-12 damage.

 

The 2 handed swords and fire arms where the only wepons doing damage. Hitting for 40 plus damage. Sure they are slower but the damage reduction on your enemies makes the single handed weapons useless (except sabres, purg and res)

 

Another balancing issue I wish was overhauled.

[Gairnulf]

If you care that much about the numbers use a calculator.

The point is, with a good interface and a clear set of rules, I should not need to use a calculator. You suggesting I use a calculator to calculate the same things that the game is already calculating and not showing me, is basically an affirmation of my point that PoE doesn't have the aforementioned two things.

 

Even if I would use a calculator, I need to know in what order to apply percentage multipliers, as I have already explained. (10 damage + 25%) + 50% = 12.5 damage + 6.25 damage = 18.75 damage

10 damage + (25% + 50%) = 10 damage + 7.5 damage = 17.5 damage.

 

If you absolutely need the bestest gear at all times maybe Diablo is a better genre for you.

You don't understand, apparently. I want tactics, not a clickfest. Also, Diablo is a game, not a genre.

 

Again the simple answer is bigger numbers are better then smaller numbers for damage and faster is better than slower.

Completely unrelated - cavemen could count to three and anything more than that was considered simply to be "many".

 

If you really, really need to know  then go record the game at 30 fps video and count frames. I can happily go to my grave without ever knowing exactly how many frames my character attacks at.

I shouldn't have to record anything. The game should present weapon stats in a clear way. Unfortunately that's either impossible at a technical level - calculating frames and sending this number to the interface, or has never been implemented in the UI for some reason. This is a problem, and this is what I hope is fixed. Edited October 25, 2015 by Gairnulf

[Elerond]

 

+27% to action speed increases your character's DPS +27%

-20% to recovery time increases your recovery time 20% and as base your action is split 50/50 between attack and recovery, which means that it decreases your DPS 10%

+25% to damage increases your DPS 25%.

1.2x attack speed multiplier increases your DPS 10% because of that 50/50 split between attack and recovery time.

+3 to movement speed adds +3 to characters movement speed which make them move faster from point a to point b in combat mode, it don't effect action speed anyway.

A percentage is always a percentage "of something". What times, in seconds, do these percentages result in. That's what I want to know.

 

Also higher base damage is better against high DR enemies.

Isn't higher base damage always better than lower base damage?

 

High action speed gives you more ability get more on hit effects (like DR reduction, stun, graze to hit, hit to critical), which usually make it more effective choice against enemies with low DR.

How do I calculate my action speed in seconds?

 

And only thing that you need to calculate is which weapon gives you higher DPS increase..

I assume you are omitting "...vs the enemy in question"? Because you have things various damage multipliers that take effect vs a different combination of enemy.

 

My point this whole time is that the game's interface doesn't provide an easy way to calculate your damage and speed and decide what weapon is better.

 

 

Lets take for example D&D you have weapon that does 1D4+6 + 1d4 lightning damage and gives +6 Thac0 and you have weapon that does 2d4+4 and gives +1 attack and your character has at base attack number is 3/2 so which of this weapons does averagely more damage in combat round.

 

In PoE to calculate which of two same weapons is better you don't need to know what is base attack speed (although I have complained that obsidian should give weapon and action speeds in seconds instead of just categorizing them in fast/normal/slow/very slow [which tell how many frames action animation will use, there has been calculation what those frame amounts are, but as Obsidian has made quite lot changes after those were done which means I am not sure if they are correct anymore I will not list them])

 

With higher base damage I meant to compare two weapons with same DPS (one with higher base damage and one that is faster)

Edited October 25, 2015 by Elerond

[Gairnulf]

Lets take for example D&D you have weapon that does 1D4+6 + 1d4 lightning damage and gives +6 Thac0 and you have weapon that does 2d4+4 and gives +1 attack and your character has at base attack number is 3/2 so which of this weapons does averagely more damage in combat round.

If it's Advanced D&D 2nd Edition:

 

Weapon 1: does 1d4 +6 + 1d4 = 7-10 + 1-4 electrical damage. Provided the target isn't under the effect of some form of protection from electricity, this would give you a number between 8 and 14, or 11 on average.

 

Weapon 2: You can only do more than one attack every round if you are a fighter and if you are at least level 13. According to the "Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia" you have to hit 2 on your Attack roll (after modifiers) to preform more than one attack:

In melee combat, if the fighter can hit his opponent with an attack roll of 2 (modified by all bonuses), he can make two attacks per round against that target (three per round at level 24, four per round at level 36).

So, this shouldn't happen too often.

 

In D&D, due to turn-based combat, you can choose what action to preform for your "second attack". You can just do a regular attack, or move, or preform some other fighter-specific action, like Disarm or Parry. If you choose to preform another attack, then a second (or third, or fourth) attack is calculated just like the first one.

 

2d4 + 4 gives an average of 9 damage. So if you preform two attacks per round, that should be an average of 18 damage.

 

If you have a base number of 3 attacks per 2 rounds (which is the same as 2 attacks every other round and one attack every other round), Weapon 2 would raise you to 5 attacks per 3 rounds.

 

So, you are comparing a 9 attacks for 9 damage on average (for 6 rounds) to 10 attacks for 11 damage on average (for 6 rounds). 81 < 111. On average, you should be better off with Weapon 2.

 

How much better the THAC0 bonus will make things depends too much on the enemy you're fighting, its hitpoints and Armor Class. If you are a fighter with 3 attacks per 2 rounds, you are between levels 9 and 12, so your THAC0 is already between 12 and 9 (it's reduced by 1 every level because you are a fighter), so I think you're pretty well off even without the bonus to THAC0 that Weapon 1 gives.

 

I'd use the weapon with the THAC0 bonus vs a well-armored opponent and the weapon with a bonus attack vs an opponent with less armor and more hitpoints, I guess.

 

In conclusion, the calculations I had to go through for this were simple multiplication and addition of integers. This demonstrates, like I said, that D&D can't get nearly as complicated as PoE neither in calculating attacks per a number of seconds/per round, nor in calculating average damage. PoE is more complicated, which would have still been ok, if its calculations were explained in some documentation or better yet, in the UI itself. D&D, on the other hand has an abundance of documentation and a large community, so you can get an answer to even more complex questions than in this example.

 

I should say I'm not any kind of a D&D expert. I looked up the answers to your example in the player's handbook and in the cyclopedia (for 2nd Edition). I'd look up the answers to my own questions too, if such resources existed for PoE.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Gairnulf

[Elerond]

 

Lets take for example D&D you have weapon that does 1D4+6 + 1d4 lightning damage and gives +6 Thac0 and you have weapon that does 2d4+4 and gives +1 attack and your character has at base attack number is 3/2 so which of this weapons does averagely more damage in combat round.

If it's Advanced D&D 2nd Edition:

 

Weapon 1: does 1d4 +6 + 1d4 = 7-10 + 1-4 electrical damage. Provided the target isn't under the effect of some form of protection from electricity, this would give you a number between 8 and 14, or 11 on average.

 

Weapon 2: You can only do more than one attack every round if you are a fighter and if you are at least level 13. According to the "Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia" you have to hit 2 on your Attack roll (after modifiers) to preform more than one attack:

 

And game system in question is IE games' (or more accurately Baldur's Gate's) version of AD&D (which is D&D where anyother version of D&D is D&D IMO) It don't have all the same rules as P&P version. And it is version that we have talked about.

 

It seems to me that you math has failed 

Edited October 25, 2015 by Elerond

[Fenixp]

Gairnulf, have you considered the possibility that perhaps statistics in Dungeons and Dragons games seem a lot more clear to you quite simply because you are a lot more familiar with the system? I have none of that knowledge and while I understand basic concepts, statistics felt a lot more organic and easier to understand in PoE than in IE games.

[Njall]

Gairnulf, have you considered the possibility that perhaps statistics in Dungeons and Dragons games seem a lot more clear to you quite simply because you are a lot more familiar with the system? I have none of that knowledge and while I understand basic concepts, statistics felt a lot more organic and easier to understand in PoE than in IE games.

 

That's certainly a possibility, but it doesn't seem quite that easy to me. 

In AD&D ( and, by the way, the version of AD&D we saw in BG was only slightly different than the pnp version, and the difference came mainly from kits and the way weapon specialization could progress over the second rank ) you have 6 second rounds, a fixed number of attacks/round, and, mostly, a slew of static bonuses that you get to add to your damage.

So, in order to calculate how much damage/round you deal, you just need your to-hit chance vs the specific opponent you're fighting, and just multiply it by your average damage ( which is just the sum of your weapon's average damage and your static damage bonuses ) and by your attacks/round. 

Easy enough, right? 

Let's see how PoE (whose system I prefer to the BG version of AD&D, if we're talking crpgs ) handles the same thing: 

first, you have to understand how many "attacks/round" you have, or, in other words, how often you attack. There's really no easy way to do it, you just have to either test it yourself or go look for it on the internet.

Then, after you've understood how often your greatsword-wielding fighter attacks, you have to factor in dexterity (for both attack speed and recovery ) and how much your armor, which only affects your recovery, impacts how often you will land a blow. 

After that, you need to estimate how much damage each blow deals; since all damage bonuses are additive and expressed in percentages in PoE, you need to extract the weapon's base damage, scroll your character sheet looking for each and any additive bonus you might possess, convert those % values into static values and then add them up; that alone is much more complex (or, at least, takes much more time )than just looking at your character sheet and looking up how much damage each swing deals.

Then you'd need to factor in the way defense and the combat table interact: instead of just multiplying your average damage by your chance to hit, you need to multiply it by your chance to hit + half your chance to graze and + 1 1/2 your chance to crit.

After that, you factor in the opponent's DR and add any lash damage you might possess.

 

Dunno, maybe I'm biased, but PoE's maths seems way more complex than BG's, to me.

Also, let me be perfectly clear on this point: I don't thing it's a bad thing, and I do prefer PoE's way of handling combat.

Also, I'd love replaying the BGs and IWD redone with PoE's system: it's an engine that, to me, looks loosely based on a mix-and-match of D&D 4e ( the four static defenses, the way health replenishes endurance after a fight, the damage-to-endurance ratio, the way engagement works...), strongly influenced by the concept of bounded accuracy brought forth by D&D 5e ( the way the combat engine is designed seems to try very hard to keep bonuses and penalties relevant across the levels ) and a magic system that's very reminiscent of AD&D-BECMI-3.x (at least as far as wizards and clerics are concerned ), designed to be run by a CPU rather than a group of players who might or might not be able to handle the complexities of the engine. It's designed from the grounds up for this purpose, rather than being a clumsy port.

 

Still, eyeballing things like damage/second does look like it takes considerably more effort than it did in BG or BG2, to me; YMMV, obviously.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Njall

[Fenixp]

Njall, I'm actually not necessarily arguing against Dungeons and Dragons being clearer when you understand it - of course it is, it's a system designed for pen and paper play so everything needs to be relatively easy to calculate. I'm talking about position of a person unfamiliar with either of the two systems getting into Pillars of Eternity along with Baldur's Gate. PoE gives you a ton of easily digestible information right there on the statistics screen, whereas Infinity Engine games sort of require you to know DnD ruleset and then to find out eccentricities introduced by weird implementation of turn based combat Bioware opted for.

[Njall]

Njall, I'm actually not necessarily arguing against Dungeons and Dragons being clearer when you understand it - of course it is, it's a system designed for pen and paper play so everything needs to be relatively easy to calculate. I'm talking about position of a person unfamiliar with either of the two systems getting into Pillars of Eternity along with Baldur's Gate. PoE gives you a ton of easily digestible information right there on the statistics screen, whereas Infinity Engine games sort of require you to know DnD ruleset and then to find out eccentricities introduced by weird implementation of turn based combat Bioware opted for.

 

Yeah, but BG ( and BG 2 ) do give you all you need to, say, eyeball your damage/round once you know the rules (which may or may not be explained well in game, I honestly can't remember now ).

Also, once you know both systems, AD&D's way of handling things is still way faster than PoE's ( which, as you say,is obvious  to an extent ), simply because there are fewer steps involved (no DR, a fixed amount of attacks/round instead of attack speed, no interrupts, just to name a few ).

Conversely, PoE doesn't tell you a lot of stuff ( how do you resolve interrupts? How do attack speed and recovery interact? Which bonuses are additive and which are multiplicative? What stacks and what doesn't? ) and, even when you understand how it works, it's still more complex than its AD&D counterpart.

Sure, it tells you more than BG does, but that's simply because there's a lot more going on. It also keeps a lot more information hidden than the infinity engine games do, tho.

Again, to me, that's not a problem. But I can understand how it could put off some people.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Njall

[Gairnulf]

Gairnulf, have you considered the possibility that perhaps statistics in Dungeons and Dragons games seem a lot more clear to you quite simply because you are a lot more familiar with the system? I have none of that knowledge and while I understand basic concepts, statistics felt a lot more organic and easier to understand in PoE than in IE games.

Yes, it's very probable, and I have admitted this myself, even on this forum I think. I learned D&D in my teen years. It's at least partly the reason I find PoE to be more difficult, but I still think the major reason is that D&D really is more simple. As I said, it's a tabletop game, integers only, no percentages, etc. Thing is, and I'll repeat this yet again - you can't learn PoE's rules the way you can learn D&D's rules, because PoE's rules are not fully documented.

 

And game system in question is IE games' (or more accurately Baldur's Gate's) version of AD&D (which is D&D where anyother version of D&D is D&D IMO) It don't have all the same rules as P&P version. And it is version that we have talked about.

 

It seems to me that you math has failed

A calculation is either correct or incorrect. There is no such thing as "it seems". And it seems to me that you've ran out arguments. After I answered you, you suddenly pull a rabbit out of the hat "I meant in Baldur's Gate!". I find that hard to believe, because:

1. In your previous post your question was related to D&D specifically:

Lets take for example D&D you have weapon that does 1D4+6 + 1d4 lightning damage and gives +6 Thac0 and you have weapon that does 2d4+4 and gives +1 attack and your character has at base attack number is 3/2 so which of this weapons does averagely more damage in combat round.

2. You used hypothetical weapons, instead of quoting two real weapons from any two IE games.

 

3. If you meant me to mentally test the performance two hypothetical weapons, while using BG's D&D implementation, what exactly did you expect? Do you expect me to know BG's D&D implementation in the part concerning the circumstances you've described in your example?

 

4. Even if I did know it, what use would that be? How would you verify whatever I said or even made up, about two weapons that don't exist in that game? What I know or can look up, are the actual D&D rules. They are something both of us can check, to verify if I'm right or not. Even if I tell you something about how two hypothetical weapons would preform in BG, how would you verify my statement?

 

Therefore, it makes no sense to me that by "how it works in D&D" you meant "how it works in BG". I'm just not buying that, I think it came up now, after I've disproven that D&D can easily be as complex as PoE in your example.

 

P.S. Whatever the implementation of D&D is in BG regarding multiple attacks "per round" -- first of all, BG doesn't implement rounds in the same way they function in D&D -- I doubt it would be something more complex than what's in D&D. Bioware are more likely to have cut rules than made up new ones of their own, especially in their first IE game back in 1996-1997.

 

So, even clutching at this straw will hardly save the argument that D&D in Baldur's Gate is comparably complex to PoE's mechanics.

Edited October 25, 2015 by Gairnulf

[Sannom]

bingo... in the sense that this is exact what we would want the developers to avoid.  carsomyr were a ridiculous overpowered weapon that you could gets early in the game.

That sounds unfair. Firkraag's dungeon and Firkraag himself weren't the De'Arnise castle or Umar Hills. It was one huge, difficult dungeon! 

 

there were a talking sword in bg2, but by mid-point o' game, nobody used it.

I'm confused, why would any non-paladin give up on Lilalcor before coming back from the Underdark (and even then, the only best choice only has a +4 alteration bonus with no special ability)? The +3 alteration bonus made it work against 95% of enemies and it provided a few immunities to status effects. What two-handed sword was better than that?

[Gromnir]

 

bingo... in the sense that this is exact what we would want the developers to avoid.  carsomyr were a ridiculous overpowered weapon that you could gets early in the game.

That sounds unfair. Firkraag's dungeon and Firkraag himself weren't the De'Arnise castle or Umar Hills. It was one huge, difficult dungeon! 

 

there were a talking sword in bg2, but by mid-point o' game, nobody used it.

I'm confused, why would any non-paladin give up on Lilalcor before coming back from the Underdark (and even then, the only best choice only has a +4 alteration bonus with no special ability)? The +3 alteration bonus made it work against 95% of enemies and it provided a few immunities to status effects. What two-handed sword was better than that?

 

not unfair at all.  yes, it were a difficult dungeon, though not considerably moreso than de'arnise or umar... be honest.  regardless, any paladin is gonna do it before leaving for spellhold, and potential very early.

 

http://www.gamebanshee.com/baldursgateii/equipment/twohandedswords.php#null

 

any +3 weapon or better with an additional effect is better than the talking sword... of which there is a few available before return from underdark.  regardless, you miss point-- intentional or not.  in spite o' uniqueness, most folks is gonna give up the +3 talking sword as soon as they find a more effective sword.  am sensing intentional obtuse, but perhaps am wrong.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Sannom]

any +3 weapon or better with an additional effect is better than the talking sword... of which there is a few available before return from underdark.  regardless, you miss point-- intentional or not.  in spite o' uniqueness, most folks is gonna give up the +3 talking sword as soon as they find a more effective sword.  am sensing intentional obtuse, but perhaps am wrong.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

I'm really not trying to be obtuse, nor do I argue your point, I'm just really baffled by your specific example based on my own experience, because I can't remember a better two-handed sword than Lilarcor before the end of the Underdark, and that, for me, is past the mid-point of the game.

[Gromnir]

 

any +3 weapon or better with an additional effect is better than the talking sword... of which there is a few available before return from underdark.  regardless, you miss point-- intentional or not.  in spite o' uniqueness, most folks is gonna give up the +3 talking sword as soon as they find a more effective sword.  am sensing intentional obtuse, but perhaps am wrong.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

I'm really not trying to be obtuse, nor do I argue your point, I'm just really baffled by your specific example based on my own experience, because I can't remember a better two-handed sword than Lilarcor before the end of the Underdark, and that, for me, is past the mid-point of the game.

 

well, as you can see from the link, there are such weapons.... which is largely irrelevant.  the point is that the uniqueness o' the talking sword does not make it your weapon o' choice once other superior weapons is available.  you aint arguing with us that the unique nature o' the talking sword made you use it longer than other more traditional magical weapons?  no?  then...

 

*shrug*

 

HA! Good Fun!

[brindle88]

This thread has resulted in an amazing amount of interest and attention in a short amount of time. Hundreds of replies, thousands of views, lots of meaningful discussion

 

I would love to see a comment from an obsidian producer (perhaps sawyer) in regards to his thoughts on this topic.

 

I am sending a note to a mod to request that sawyer makes a comment on his thoughts on the main issues discussed in this thread. I would love for sawyer to perhaps suggest his thoughts on:

 

- will we be getting more powerful magic items in pillars of eternity 2

- will be be getting more exciting talents to choose from

- will the balancing issue be approached differently, eg perhaps balancing in a. Way that doses not make combat more boring