3.00 patch teased by Josh on SA

[anameforobsidian]

4. Injuries... Well... It's very hard to breakdown, honestly. Especially in quickfire analysis. But let's try...

They ARE good and they need to stay in the game PERIOD, there's that. The problem is - since PoE combat is not very hard, except on PotD, they hit hardest only when they multiply, i.e. one character falls time after time without resting. And even when they do hit, they all rectified instantly with simple resting. Their effect so far is not very noticeable, so you can freely allow yourself to fall, just like before. That's my main gripe with the game combat overall - because of the health system, you effectively have 6 extra lives against just one in IWD, for example. Meaning - in IWD fight could be called dangerous if you could lose just one fighter in it, since player reloads immediately and restarts, resetting progress completely. Here, fight could be called dangerous only when there's direct risk of full party wipe instead of one member.

 

Which means - since injuries can be rectified instantly and their effect is noticeable only when they multiply since the combat is not really hard, they need to hit harder, I think. Much harder, maybe even. You already have two very easy difficulty modes, now when Story Time is included, so I think something could be done for players that want some challenge. And every PoE player WILL get better over time, even someone who is not good with mechanics so there's that. But even then it will only force resting, so I don't know, really. They ARE good for some players like me who can't stand seeing even slight penalty on stats, since this will psychologically force them to fight better so they won't see it, ever. So that's something, I guess. And BTW, this brings me to my next point...

 

What you're describing here basically makes me feel like injuries are working as designed.  

 

A binary difficulty system like the IE games subtly encourages mediocre tactics, and overstates the effectiveness of damage spells or spells with easy saves.  Because complete wipes and one party member dying are treated the same way and have the same result, it gets harder to differentiate bad tactics.  Meanwhile, your only recourse is to start the same fight over again, but because of the RNG the same mediocre tactics can have wildly different results.  So the lesson from one character dying isn't you need to change strategies, it turns into ride the RNG until you win.  Cast ice storm until it gets max damage, or harm until it gets past spell resistance, etc.

 

Injuries show that you had bad tactics, but encourage you to keep going.  They also help emphasize different characters in the party by making the injured one less useful.  My offtanking and positioning got much better once Eder racked up a couple injuries in a dungeon I shouldn't have been in.  Similarly, I tested out the reloading chant once Kana had been injured.

 

 

On a related but different note, reloading is not the only way to induce challenge.

[HawkSoft]

 

I'd prefer a system that gave a character a weak leg/chest/arm so that if the character was subsequently KO'd it could turn into a permanent injury. The severity of a weakness and the chance of a KO causing a permanent injury might depend on how long the character was KO'd before the end of the fight. Resting might gradually reduce the severity of a weakness but never eliminate it, Ideally there should be some injury related banter for the pre-made characters. Permanently injured characters could get a per-rest *overcome injury* ability (with a bark please).

(1) Complicated

(2) Functionally equivalent to permadeath (i.e., an automatic reload trigger for almost all players)

 

I.e., :thumbsdown: on this. If you want that experience, just get rid of the dual health bar and put in permadeath, it's much simpler.

 

I tend to agree BUT:

• You can always turn the Crippled option off, I've currently got it ON whilst testing the Beta but I'll probably turn if OFF as it just adds more micro.
• If you are going to have a Crippled mechanism it should make sense from a roll playing perspective, at present a good (or bad) night's sleep cures everything

[HawkSoft]

 

I have a bad feeling about this. Being forced to choose buff at each rest is rather repetitive and does not bring gameplay i like. It is boring.

 

Imho there should be easier solution, like: Survival - increase potion, food duration AND gives bonus to healing effects on us.

If that is not enought:

+Give some small elemental resistance.

 

I simply would prefer passive buff, which leaves more time for real play.

I mean, the buffs are saved every time you rest and you only have to change them if you aren't satisfied with how they're working out or want to optimize for a particular situation. Otherwise, you just leave them as they are and confirm rest with another click. Doesn't seem like a huge hassle to me.

 

Like he says, it's basically  a one-time thing and the default selections seem sensible.

 

One odd thing is they don't work (in the beta) at inns, not even if you slob it in the common room so camping is clearly *healthy*

[Fiery Rain]

 

5. Rest mechanics. The same players (but not me this time) probably will also now avoid the resting, since now it involves fairly long process of selecting beneficial effects each time when you press the rest button. So the game will become harder for them, in a very roundabout way. It's not hard to do, for me at least, so I don't mind. And it's better than it was before, because Survival now actually does something. But I've got some vague feeling there will be complaints that "it's too long doing that every time" or something. Again, for me, it's cool. My problem is different - these bonuses make fairly easy combat even easier. Easier combat mean less Injuries. And Injuries so far are not too noticeable. So again, I think, for Injuries to work, they really need to hit hard. Meaning, after receving two or three characters should already barely walk. They are optional, after all, if you don't like them - disable them, so you can "go wild" with them.

 

I have a bad feeling about this. Being forced to choose buff at each rest is rather repetitive and does not bring gameplay i like. It is boring.

 

Imho there should be easier solution, like: Survival - increase potion, food duration AND gives bonus to healing effects on us.

If that is not enought:

+Give some small elemental resistance.

 

I simply would prefer passive buff, which leaves more time for real play.

 

 

What WorstUsernameEver said, actually - I forgot to mention this. You're not required to assign bonuses each and every time, you can just leave it to default (which incurs +2DR, I believe, but could be different, I guess, depending on Survival) and simply click "OK", like usual.

 

 

 

4. Injuries... Well... It's very hard to breakdown, honestly. Especially in quickfire analysis. But let's try...

They ARE good and they need to stay in the game PERIOD, there's that. The problem is - since PoE combat is not very hard, except on PotD, they hit hardest only when they multiply, i.e. one character falls time after time without resting. And even when they do hit, they all rectified instantly with simple resting. Their effect so far is not very noticeable, so you can freely allow yourself to fall, just like before. That's my main gripe with the game combat overall - because of the health system, you effectively have 6 extra lives against just one in IWD, for example. Meaning - in IWD fight could be called dangerous if you could lose just one fighter in it, since player reloads immediately and restarts, resetting progress completely. Here, fight could be called dangerous only when there's direct risk of full party wipe instead of one member.

 

Which means - since injuries can be rectified instantly and their effect is noticeable only when they multiply since the combat is not really hard, they need to hit harder, I think. Much harder, maybe even. You already have two very easy difficulty modes, now when Story Time is included, so I think something could be done for players that want some challenge. And every PoE player WILL get better over time, even someone who is not good with mechanics so there's that. But even then it will only force resting, so I don't know, really. They ARE good for some players like me who can't stand seeing even slight penalty on stats, since this will psychologically force them to fight better so they won't see it, ever. So that's something, I guess. And BTW, this brings me to my next point...

 

What you're describing here basically makes me feel like injuries are working as designed.  

 

A binary difficulty system like the IE games subtly encourages mediocre tactics, and overstates the effectiveness of damage spells or spells with easy saves.  Because complete wipes and one party member dying are treated the same way and have the same result, it gets harder to differentiate bad tactics.  Meanwhile, your only recourse is to start the same fight over again, but because of the RNG the same mediocre tactics can have wildly different results.  So the lesson from one character dying isn't you need to change strategies, it turns into ride the RNG until you win.  Cast ice storm until it gets max damage, or harm until it gets past spell resistance, etc.

 

Injuries show that you had bad tactics, but encourage you to keep going.  They also help emphasize different characters in the party by making the injured one less useful.  My offtanking and positioning got much better once Eder racked up a couple injuries in a dungeon I shouldn't have been in.  Similarly, I tested out the reloading chant once Kana had been injured.

 

 

On a related but different note, reloading is not the only way to induce challenge.

 

 

Yes, I guess if there's no difference between one member and full party, that's not too good. Thing is, I'm not campaigning for Injuries to inflict permadeath, that's the whole point. They should encourage, yes - and the only difference is, instead of showing that you should fight better very "softly", they should really drive the point home, so to speak. With fairly harsh penalties, however, not the death of PC. They are optional, so I don't really see any harm in experimenting. If this proves too harsh, the effect could always be rolled back to starting values. Because right now it shows, yes, but that is it. Like I said, more of a psychological effect than a gameplay one.

 

I should also probably mention I'm not saying "it should be just like IE". Not at all. I just used IWD as a convenient example.

[tinysalamander]

Permanent crippling effects also have a problem of “spiral of death.” If you were crippled then you weren't good enough in a fight, so things become even more complicated for you which means you are even more likely to fail again. It becomes harder for weaker players and changes nothing for good ones. Feels kind of messy, IMO.

 

Unless you play on PotD or something where you are asking for an all-out challenge, I suppose.

[AndreaColombo]

To confirm—are action icons on portraits a toggable option?

[Fiery Rain]

Yes. Enabled by default now, I believe.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Does anyone know what level the level-scaling for Act III triggers now?

[BMac]

Has anyone figured out what level triggers the scaling option for Act III?

It should start asking at 10.

[AndreaColombo]

BMac—is there a console command to force scaling?

 

I'm asking because—say I want a specific piece of equipment that can only be acquired in Act III, so I rush to it. I enter Act III at a level lower than 10 to acquire the item, then revert to Act II / TWM stuff and come back to Act III that I'm super pumped. The game won't ask me to scale difficulty, but I would definitely want to up the ante. Would be groovy if I could console-force it.

[BMac]

Yep. It's called ToggleScaler .  You can use Tab to cycle through the options for the > parameter, they should be mostly self-explanatory.  It also doesn't count as a cheat.  ShowScalers will also help.

[AndreaColombo]

Brilliant!

 

Dumb question: How does the Tab cycle thing work? I type "Toggle Scaler" in the console and start tabbing?

[BMac]

It tries to automatically complete whatever you're typing.  So you if you type Toggl and starting hitting Tab it will cycle through commands that start with that.  I just checked and you do have to type at least one letter for the parameters for it to work (i.e. ToggleScalers P).  The scalers are PX1_HIGH_LEVEL, ACT4_HIGH_LEVEL, ELMSHORE_HIGH_LEVEL, PX2_HIGH_LEVEL

 

EDIT: if it doesn't work you may need to execute one command first.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Yep. It's called ToggleScaler <scaler>.  You can use Tab to cycle through the options for the <scaler> parameter, they should be mostly self-explanatory.  It also doesn't count as a cheat.  ShowScalers will also help.

 

Ok, Great, this is *exactly* why I was asking -- I was planning to rush Act III for some specific gear, then run all the Act II sidequests and White March, then come back. Thanks!

[Mercbeast]

I think the problem with perma death or crippling injuries in a game like this, is that the game from its inception was not designed for it. As such, adding these situations to the game are little more than time sinks. If a character dies, the character is irreplaceable. You reload. If the character is crippled, the character is irreplaceable, you reload.

 

A game like xcom, where perma death and losses are part and parcel with the experience, is successful with that design decision, because that design decision was part of the design concept from day 1. The expansive roster, the relative ease and quickness in which a total rookie can be made into a usable asset.

 

In Pillars, yes, you can just go to the inn and roll up a character, but why? You have no attachment to the character. You haven't developed it. In Pillars, you're basically just deleting a character you are attached to and rolling up a brand new replacement for the sake of it. In xcom, you almost certainly have a replacement in the wings that you do have attachment too, perhaps not as much as your hyper elite sniper colonel, but they've seen some stuff with you too.

 

I think the big difference is the roster size. If pillars had a game design that required the use of a larger roster, say through the accumulation of injuries that HAD to be rested for 10+ days to recover from, and lessened the impact of typical RPG powercreep, where a level 4 guy isn't just pure fodder for anything level 6 or 7, it would encourage the use of a perma death/injury system and add depth to the game.

 

As it is, these just feel like tacked on time sinks.

[Aarik D]

Hey guys!

 

Aarik here from the tech side of the forums. The tease is over! 3.0 beta is now live on Steam. We would love it and encourage everyone to head over to the beta branch and give it a try! We would love to hear your feedback on the new changes and point out some bugs we missed along the way. 

 

Click here to find out how to participate in beta!

 

Thanks a bunch! 

[HawkSoft]

Running the 3.0 beta my monk got frostbite as a result of being KO'd whilst fighting shades in the Gilded Vale temple.

 

Ho hum. back to the pub to warm up.

 

I'll keep *cripple* on whilst running the beta but after there it will be disabled as it adds nothing to my roll playing experience.

As Mercbeat pointed out crippling just feels tagged on.

[Starwars]

That sounds really awkward. I like the idea of injuries myself but please try to keep the injuries to things that make sense.

[AndreaColombo]

^ getting frostbitten from cold-based attacks makes sense though, does it not?

[Starwars]

Do they use ice attacks? To be honest I can't remember. But yeah, if it's tied to which attack downs a party member, I'm obviously fine with it. 

[AndreaColombo]

I can't remember either, but I recall Josh saying on SA that it would indeed be tied to the type of attack that downs you.

Edited January 23, 2016 by AndreaColombo

[HawkSoft]

Yes, shades use frost attacks (I checked the log).

 

Durance's revised staff (crush/burn) helps a lot with these fights which used to be horrible for a low level party

However my monk's Turning Wheel does not seem to be triggering

[Sannom]

Do they use ice attacks? To be honest I can't remember. But yeah, if it's tied to which attack downs a party member, I'm obviously fine with it. 

Not all the time, but one of their special moves has an ice effect.

[Boeroer]

Monk and Turning Wheel not triggering - it's a story full of mysteries.

[L4wlight]

 

As the level cap continued increasing, the max Focus cap outpaced the increase in cipher power cost by an increasingly wide margin until it became both very easy to start combat with really strong powers and very easy to regain enough Focus to immediately use those strong powers -- sometimes multiple times in sequence. The goal of the "non-traditional" resource characters (ciphers, monks, and chanters) has always been that the majority of powers are not restricted to times per encounter or times per rest, but to a resource that requires time to pass/things to occur within combat. If little or no time is actually required for these classes to use their most powerful abilities in rapid succession, there's not really a trade-off.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3706905&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=713

 

Yeah and some of the already weaker Cipher powers are now even more useless...

Edited January 23, 2016 by L4wlight