A closer analysis on class balance and the 2.03 patch

[Njall]

It is not clearly polarizing because 3 people complain about it.

Neither it is universally liked because 4 people agree with it.

Anedoctal evidence is hardly reliable.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Njall

[Gairnulf]

From what I've seen most of us here have radically different views of what constitutes fun rtwp combat, but I guess we can all agree that we can't realistically expect combat to become significantly different by now. So,the situation being as it is, to me it seems that immunities add variance to combat and are a small step in the right direction. This is as good as it gets, when larger steps are no longer possible.

 

Lobbying for PoE2's combat will start soon enough, and I guess will be a little less futile than it was for PoE's combat, but still just as fun to follow on the forums.

[BrainMuncher]

People are talking about appearances in a thread about mechanics & balance. If the same ability instead of being called knockdown was instead described as some sort of mystical ability that disoriented the victim so that they fell over, then the entire "man too small to knock down dragon" thing goes out the window.

 

The appearances are totally irrelevant when discussing balance. As far as the mechanics are concerned it doesn't matter if the lore says it's a fire elemental immune to fire, a or a sentient cardboard box that's immune to packing tape. It's just a creature with an immunity.

 

In general, immunities reduce the number of available tactics in a given situation. They reduce the number of abilities that are consistently useful and therefore worth taking/using. Specifically for PE which seems designed with synergies and full party co-operation in mind, the immunity not only denies the effectiveness of one ability, but also the effectiveness of any synergistic abilities used by other party members.

So a tactic involving the use of two abilities in combination is twice as likely to be thwarted by an immunity, and the more elaborate your "combo" gets, the more likely it is to fail to some miscellaneous immunity. This lack of reliability further encourages sticking to basic damage dealing.

 

I've always hated those sections in FPS games where they take away movement and put you behind a turret or something. Or force you to use a specific weapon for no apparent reason. DOOM never did this, if you wanted to kill the cyberdemon with the BFG, go right ahead. But if you wanted to save your BFG ammo for the horde of imps and kill the cyberdemon with a shotgun instead, you could do that too. The rules didn't change just because you encountered a boss. Contrast that to a game like Bastion, where you spend the entire game developing a certain style of fighting, and you are looking forward to the climax, the final test of your skill. But when you get to that final level, your are force-equipped with a giant log with overpowered damage, that cripples your mobility. So for the entire final level you walk slowly around hitting things with a big log. What a let down.

 

Immunities do the same thing. Sorry, these trolls can only be killed with fire - here, have this a chest filled with molotov ****tails. It's not far removed from rail shooting.

 

If a fire elemental is immune to fire why isn't he also immune to swords? Have you ever tried putting out a bonfire by slicing it with a knife? Why isn't he basically immune to everything that isn't an overwhelming gust of wind, a large body of water, or a total lack of oxygen? It's because you'd be forced into the troll rail shooter situation, where there is only one solution and that solution is provided to you right before you meet the fire elemental.

 

Why should he be immune to fire anyway? Why not let fire damage him, but cause his next attack to do increased damage. Or it doesn't damage him, but instead makes him get bigger and slower so he's easier to deal with. Why make the dragon immune to knockdown when you could do something else? Maybe it becomes enraged and flails about on the ground, knocking everything near it down as well. Or whoever knocked it down gets crushed beneath it's weight when it falls over. Or just raise its fortitude, encouraging synergies with abilities which lower fortitude, instead of discouraging them. There are unlimited possibilities for adding flavour and variation to monsters that add depth to the game instead of taking it away.

[Zenbane]

Even if it's not D&D, it's still an rpg, and the way fighting is depicted in PoE should be seen as a rough approssimation of what your characters are actually doing, at best.

Or do you really believe your fighters just stand there and swing a sword every 3 seconds or so, while being pummeled on the face at regular intervals, without even trying to move around?That when you hit the "knockdown" button your next weapon swing will automagically knock something down despite carrying the exact same force as the previous one? And that after you've knocked an opponent down twice in a battle your fighter suddenly forgets how to knock people down until the next battle starts?

Because that's far more unrealistic than a dragon getting outmaneuvered by a smaller opponent, and that's definitely not how fighting looks like in real life.

Quite a few things wrong with all of that. First of all, you snuck in a premise that the Knockdown attempt uses the exact same force as the previously executed attack. That is blatantly wrong. It's common sense that spells and attacks use a different amount of energy/endurance/mana (etc), so naturally a character cannot simply spam the same thing over and over. It's not that a Fighter "forgot" how to Knockdown an enemy after doing it twice; it's simply that the Fighter is at a level where they only have enough Strength/Endurance to perform 2 Knockdowns in a single battle. And that makes perfect sense.

 

It's not that the dragon is stupid or incompetent, it's that you're a freaking weapon master.

A title earned by training against all things that are NOT dragons; which is useless when a Dragon finally shows up. You knocked down a wolf so yeah you can take down a giant winged lizard? lol

 

So unless this fighter spent his life training against Dragons, then all those years of training wont make the task easy by default. Getting a Dragon off its feet is in no way the same as taking down a human or any other mammal. The physics of the task don't even make sense.

 

You are 100% Theorycrafting.

 

 

 

 

People are talking about appearances in a thread about mechanics & balance. If the same ability instead of being called knockdown was instead described as some sort of mystical ability that disoriented the victim so that they fell over, then the entire "man too small to knock down dragon" thing goes out the window.

I actually love everything you said after this statement. Your post was spot on except for this opening. Yes of course if you strip something away and call it something else, then the original analysis of the original thing goes out the window. That's no kinda point.

 

The fact is that the Knockdown ability is NOT a mystical disorientation; it is a physical maneuver executed physically. Period. And within that context, the analysis people like Karkarov are stating is in fact valid.

 

But like I said, the rest of your post was fabulous

Edited November 6, 2015 by Zenbane

[Vorad]

 

I like immunities, I think they bring a little variety to otherwise monotonous encounters

Immunities, by their very definition, completely limit handling choices, which is the exact opposite of Variety. For example, if there are 5 different types of damage, but an enemy is immune to 4 of them... you only have 1 choice. Immunities guarantee an increase in monotony. Goodness, Gairnulf. You hop around far too many threads saying things that blatantly disregard math and science lol

 

Please math has nothing to do with it don't bring math as an argument especially in a game discussion. So you wish to provide some mathematical model supporting your claim? Or even better a statistical model on character effectiveness( quantified somehow which would require further knowledge of operations research on top of that) and a number of explanatory variables then we would need the estimates, the bias, the variance explained by your model and so on and so forth... also what kind of model would that be classical or bayesian... perhaps a glmm estimated through mcmc?

 

But because usually common sense is more effective at analyzing things(most people after all even though they are not mathematicians they do poses common sense... most of them) lets see why adding immunities actually increases the variability and playability contrary to your claim(that oddly enough is supported by math and science).

 

Before the changes most of us didn't need to adapt and utilize case specific tactics vs even the most powerful opponents(yes I mean Adra or White joke encounters on potd). What worked for me personally 100% of the time: paladin charges dragon, the rest of the party stays behind and get buffed. The wizard with 100+ accuracy casts slicken, dragon + minions all prone, casters proceed with more debuffs dumping dragons fortitude to laughable levels and wizard again kicks in with a Gaze of Adragan = gg. Rince and repeat for every "hard" encounter... variability much? I think not! It seemed more as a one trick pony to me.

 

Now with the new immunity distribution one actually has to build a party that can work well in synergy and provide answers to all potential dangers, what works vs certain opponents doesn't work vs the other therefore you actually need more differentiation in your party/abilities in order to deal with the potential threats... sometimes less is more.

 

Even with the immunities however personally I don't think anything has changed since the wizard + paladin + priest that form the core of most parties will remain exactly the same due to the fact that they provide you with everything you need to begin with. As mentioned above the only one affected by these changes would be some awkward party comps like 6 fighters or 6 barbarians with aoe stun/prone generally speaking ... no more one trick pony therefore more variability.

[Zenbane]

Well Vorad, it seems that by using the word Math I have caused you to spiral out of control. You just replied to me as though these 3 other posters didn't already address everything you're trying to introduce:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82975-a-closer-analysis-on-class-balance-and-the-203-patch/?p=1746841
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82975-a-closer-analysis-on-class-balance-and-the-203-patch/?p=1746902
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82975-a-closer-analysis-on-class-balance-and-the-203-patch/?p=1746952

 

Also, video games have more Math than you could possibly imagine. It's impossible to create a single aspect of any video game without Math. I'd recommend that you do some research before advocating that Math has no place in a discussion about software. And before you scream that this discussion isn't about software, you may want to research what the word "patch" refers to.

Edited November 6, 2015 by Zenbane

[Vorad]

Well Vorad, it seems that by using the word Math I have caused you to spiral out of control. You just replied to me as though these 3 other posters didn't already address everything you're trying to introduce:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82975-a-closer-analysis-on-class-balance-and-the-203-patch/?p=1746841

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82975-a-closer-analysis-on-class-balance-and-the-203-patch/?p=1746902

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/82975-a-closer-analysis-on-class-balance-and-the-203-patch/?p=1746952

 

Also, video games have more Math than you could possibly imagine. It's impossible to create a single aspect of any video game without Math. I'd recommend that you do some research before advocating that Math has no place in a discussion about software. And before you scream that this discussion isn't about software, you may want to research what the word "patch" refers to.

Programming is math in itself is called algorithm an is a rather ancient mathematical term by now. I am very well aware of the mathematical implications on both the physical world and the source coding alike. It seems to me however your either deliberately or not fail to understand  the reason behind my expression of indignation regarding your previous totally out of context comment.

 

You start by claiming something like "Immunities, by their very definition, completely limit handling choices" and end your "reasoning" with "blatantly disregard math and science". So you claim somehow this is a topic that violates the fundamental scientific reasoning, and go on about without actually bothering providing any mathematical or scientific proof to your hilarious, absurd and ridiculous claim and parallelization to begin with. It is hilarious and absurd for several reasons first of all because we are talking about the qualitative parts of the game and more accurately the one affecting the entertaining purpose of a game and not it's technical aspects regarding development and engineering per se. It is also absurd because you use the words math and science like bread and butter.

 

Again do you have some kind of theorem or at least a statistical model that can actually prove your claims? Read again my comment, and try to manage and answer to even one of the questions... although I have to admit those aren't truly questions... their nature is more of a rhetorical one.

There are many kinds of post I personally would accept to tolerate leaving them uncommented however when one makes such blatant  abuse of terms like science in this case that's enough provocation. There is only one thing worse than ignorance and that's sciolism. It's the source from which charlatans in all ages and times have been fouled by, and sadly with the internet things aren't getting any better.

 

My answer to that blatantly abusive comment was way more general however and I do happen to answer also as to how actually the new implementations are going to help in increasing diversity(aka no more one trick pony) in the game... apparently all these escaped your mathematical and scientific analysis.

 

Reminds me of people trying to impose their egocentric theories by perverting or attributing irrelevant quotations of Philosophers or Scientists without having a single clue whatsoever.

 

It's nothing personal really, I don't know you, you might be a really nice person and I'm not judging who you truly are in your everyday life. This is the internet however where anyone is allowed to say his piece of mind and I just can't stand idle while reading abusive comments that's all.

 

PS: Math and science generally are not bread and butter, one has better have at least some basic understanding about them when trying to utilize them in a social discussion which in that case would mean... avoid to use them completely in social discussion to begin with.

[Zenbane]

"Programming is math in itself is called algorithm an is a rather ancient mathematical term by now."

 

Algorithms are ancient? Go look at your web browser when you connect to a secure site using HTTPS. Click in there and look at the Certificate information. You will see stuff like, "Certificate Algorithm" with values, "PKCS #1 SHA-256 With RSA Encryption"

 

Ancient? Far from it. Algorithms are on the leading edge of all online security.

 

Also, Programming is not math, and Programming is not called an Algorithm. Math may be part of an algorithm, and programming may implement an Algorithm, but they are not all the same thing. You are playing some serious guess-work.  The rest of your post is equally unfounded.

[Elerond]

Algorithm means a set of rules for solving a problem in a finite number of steps and it means same in mathematics and computer science (including programming).

 

Mathematics and programming are different things, even though there are cases where they cross in same territory, like for example program can uses mathematical algorithms to solve a problem or one uses mathematics to prove that program works as intended.  

 

Algorithms ancient term, because it means quite general thing (solving a problem using same step-by-step process every time) that even people that lived in ancient times could think up.

 

Algorithms is actually just fancy word for such things like for example food recipe.

[Zenbane]

I'm pretty sure that "math" is more Ancient than "algorithm"

[Cantousent]

:Cant's Big Fat Greek Wedding accent: Math come from Greek word manthano meaning 'come to understand.' In the perfect tense, you've come to understand and therefore you know. I could go on and on about this, but folks would probably find it pretty boring. I do run into the word quite a bit as the stem forms the root for a variety of words. I guess you could say that math comes from the noun, but I think the verb predates the noun in Ancient Greek, although I'm too lazy to go look. Most notably for me recently, in Koine the word for Jesus' disciples formed from the same stem, although the meaning has become more specialized.

 

The question about whether or not math existed before the study of math? Hmmm Strictly the speaking, one must assume the things enumerated, explained, or otherwise abstractly manipulated must have existed before people, but math as an abstract idea is a human construct, so it may be a chicken and egg argument. :Cant's easy grin icon:

 

Anyhow, I find these discussions interesting. Kind of weird how threads mutate to these topics.

 

As for the original question, I'm going to restart my hard game soon. I played through on normal and about halfway through on hard when real life took precedence. I have a little time coming in a few weeks and I plan on hitting the game again. I want to do a hard run and then go to PotD. I just hope the tweaking for balance's sake is over soon so I don't have to rethink things in the middle of my PotD run.

[Cantousent]

Actually, that's not at all what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the human activity of studying math is one thing. I'm an ol' skool Platonist, even so far as to do some translations of his works. I believe the things enumerated and manipulated exist outside of humanity. That's for certain. However, the process of manipulating them in the way that humanity manipulates with the intent to explain and understand is uniquely human. That is to say two things plus two things equals four things, but the abstract language that transforms the reality into ideas which we can then manipulate is manufactured. For all we know, there's some other method of communicating these ideas, but as far as we know, we haven't met the species that uses such methods. We simply have our own.

 

...But, as fun as I find the discussion, and as much as I appreciate the articles, I'm too lazy to further the debate, so I will concede the point and move on.

 

However, speaking of communicating abstract ideas, we have to wonder where, when, and if the nerfbat will use the precision of math to batter some talent or make some monster immune. Of all the things I've heard recently, I'm only worried about excessive immunities. Of course, folks often inflate the issue, so maybe the immunities won't be that big of a deal when I start my next game. Hopefully, that's soon. For my part, I think Sawyer has some real displays of brilliance, but I've long thought, like many others, that he's a tad bit too invested in balance. ...But the game's fun, so who cares?

[Karkarov]

"A Skeleton is an undead creature in Pillars of Eternity.A Skeleton is what remain once all the flesh has rotted away. Without the ability or desire to feed, they are largely murderous automatons acting on pure reflex. Given enough time, even the bones will be reduced to dust which the soul will still be bound to."

and then I ask you to read this;

"Ciphers have the unique ability to peer through the spiritual energy of the world to manipulate other souls."

 

So I would claim that in the name of so called realism, my soul manipulating Cipher should be able to Confuse and Charm the Human Skeleton. Reasonable, isnt it? Ok, lets remove immunity from it.

 

Cronan The Barbaric, level 99 Warrior looks at his friend who is about to be killed by angry drake and says "Sorry Chuck, hes immune to my Knock Down.".

Well there are a few problems with what you are saying.

 

1: Realism is based on the rules of the world you are inhabiting. 

2: Ciphers can "manipulate" other souls, not necessarily outright control them, and not necessarily all souls.

3: Skeletons are undead who have lost their flesh and are so old they have lost all sense of self, thought, and control. 

4: Thus the Cipher can't manipulate them because while they have a soul it is so degenerated it is no longer human or even animal.  It is completely alien and has no intelligence, any "command" the Cipher issues won't be heard because there is literally no intelligent thought left to receive it.  To be confused or charmed you have to have a thought process of some kind and skeletons simply put.... don't.

 

Also no, Conan wouldn't say anything, he would just cleave the Drakes head off then mock his friend for being too weak to save himself.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Karkarov

[mosspit]

However, speaking of communicating abstract ideas, we have to wonder where, when, and if the nerfbat will use the precision of math to batter some talent or make some monster immune. Of all the things I've heard recently, I'm only worried about excessive immunities. Of course, folks often inflate the issue, so maybe the immunities won't be that big of a deal when I start my next game. Hopefully, that's soon. For my part, I think Sawyer has some real displays of brilliance, but I've long thought, like many others, that he's a tad bit too invested in balance. ...But the game's fun, so who cares?

Immunities isn't a big deal. In a way, it never was. All it serves is guide the gamer through another playstyle route. Those routes already existed without immunites in place. The problem is some folks refuse to acknowledge that these alternate approaches existed before 2.03, and by that they viewed these alternate approaches as "new". Hence the illusion of variety.

 

I am more concerned about the direction. Started out with physical type immunities and now cc immunities... Am I the only one seeing these things creeping in slowly but surely? So if encounters are not balanced in the future, is this what I am going to expect - add 1 or 2 more immunities? Hell, make an enemy totally immune and you have the most difficult encounter. Because now there are zero options to beat it.

 

Think of it long-term, you want replay value? You are going to need variety to drive that value. But whatever... from the looks of it, some folks really do need the game to impose the restrictions first before they are willing to switch up gameplay. In any case, I will figure out something to hold my interest.

Edited November 7, 2015 by mosspit

[Zenbane]

Elorond doesn't think Math exists because he's an Elf that relies on magic. Nothing much left to say about that.

 

Can we get back on topic now?

 

There are 2 main points in this thread:

 

1) Immunities create less variety because they limit group builds

2) Immunities create more variety because they prevent users from using monotonous tactics

 

The contradiction here is that the only way Immunities could increase variety is if they somehow prevented replacing one set of monotonous tactics with another. Which is NOT the case. People were spamming one thing before the Immunities update, now they will be spamming another thing. Or am I wrong on that?

 

Also, the people claiming that Immunities increase variety seem to (repeatedly) avoid addressing the limitations in group build varieties.

[Infinitron]

Well, if you switch from doing one thing repetitively to doing another thing repetitively to doing yet another thing repetitively, at some point you have to admit that you're no longer doing much repeating.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Infinitron

[Zenbane]

The repetitive switching isn't happening as quickly as your post makes it seem, but even if it did (for the sake of argument), it still doesn't address what I was asking. All you did was point out how the idea of Variety could exist in general by replacing one form of spam with another. My question was how this creates "more" variety than before. Players could perform the variety you describe all on their own through different character class build combinations. Immunities decrease those possibilities, so where is the "more variety" ?

 

Remember, "more variety" is not the same as "some variety"

[Infinitron]

The repetitive switching isn't happening as quickly as your post makes it seem, but even if it did (for the sake of argument), it still doesn't address what I was asking. All you did was point out how the idea of Variety could exist in general by replacing one form of spam with another. My question was how this creates "more" variety than before. Players could perform the variety you describe all on their own through different character class build combinations. Immunities decrease those possibilities, so where is the "more variety" ?

 

Remember, "more variety" is not the same as "some variety"

 

Did the Infinity Engine games have variety?

[Cantousent]

Okay guys, split your discussion into a thread in wot. Please continue there.

[AndreaColombo]

Since we're talking immunities, Josh posted this on SA:

 

 

We're still working on the second part of the expansion. There are a lot of ideas that seem like *~ maybe ~* they could be cool, but require implementation, testing, and feedback. Damage and affliction immunities are two of those things because they have the potential to really alter how different characters/parties deal with battles throughout the game. The code implementation of these two features was relatively low-impact, but it did require designers to go through and update all of the creature and bestiary files. It's an assumption on my part, but I think players who are sticking with the game are interested in seeing/trying new things in the base campaign as well as the expansions. If there are serious problems with anything we've implemented, we can still tune them.

[Zenbane]

Nice update! One thing is for sure, I look forward to repeated playthroughs regardless of any limitations I may encounter; as they are all most likely temporary anyway )

[Kilburn]

I see this issue from both sides. Immunities are only good if handled carefully. The fact that it nerfs fighter knock down as a byproduct IS a problem. The offenders were the stupidly overpowered warding seal and slicken. Those spells deserve to be nerfed. Fighters ability was not that good to start with so that will now need to be buffed.

 

I was advocating for Resistances. Make fire elementals 75% resistant to fire for example. You can still use fire on them it will just be less effective. In this model nothing ever becomes completely worthless. Only the most bad ass of monster should be IMMUNE as in 100% resistant. Dragons do come to mind. Immunity should not be thrown around like candy.

 

75 fire res would reduce fire damage by 75%. 40 knockdown res would reduce knockdown durations by 40%. And so on.

 

Maybe this is harder to code and implement though. Immunity might be more simple.

Edited November 7, 2015 by Kilburn

[Kilburn]

Anyone in the beta want to post the full list of creatures and what they are immune to?

 

After watching the youtube video, it does seem to be a little excessive.

 

I was thinking of making a bleak walker with the AOE fear ability whenever you down a monster. If everything is immune to fear then it completely ruins that ability. On the other hand, it doesnt really make sense for undead to become afraid. So, Im on the fence.

 

It is a good idea and it makes sense but if it makes too many abilities worthless then that aspect is not a good thing.

[dietrichrieper]

In my opinion obsidian is trying to cure a symptom instead of curing the illness.

 

The illness being all CC spells and conditions.

 

Knock down and petrification basically boil down to the same thing: you can attack your enemy without consequence.

Dominion, Charmed, and confused on top of that can make your enemy a friendly and control them.

 

My suggestion would be instead of making enemies immune to these conditions to change the nature of these conditions.

 

For instance a knocked down character could get a saving throw every time he or she is attacked to get back up, this would make it less attractive to attack a prone enemy and the ability would be used a lot more for what it is supposed to be used for: crowd control. 

 

Petrification could give the petrified subject a damage resistance of +20 or something like that, so you can attack a petrified enemy freely.

However you will not be doing a lot of damage.

 

Charmed, confused, and dominated should get a saving throw to snap out of this condition when they are attacked.

This would prevent the ability being used as a combat initiator, since the subject won't be suffering from the condition very long when attacked by multiple foes.

In addition these spells could no longer be used as hard cc, but would require a more tactical approach from the player,only dominating enemies which are not in danger of being attacked by you or their former allies.

 

It would also fix the situation most POE players have encountered multiple times, where the main tank gets gibbed with one of these abilities.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Kilburn]

In my opinion obsidian is trying to cure a symptom instead of curing the illness.

 

The illness being all CC spells and conditions.

 

Knock down and petrification basically boil down to the same thing: you can attack your enemy without consequence.

Dominion, Charmed, and confused on top of that can make your enemy a friendly and control them.

 

My suggestion would be instead of making enemies immune to these conditions to change the nature of these conditions.

 

For instance a knocked down character could get a saving throw every time he or she is attacked to get back up, this would make it less attractive to attack a prone enemy and the ability would be used a lot more for what it is supposed to be used for: crowd control. 

 

Petrification could give the petrified subject a damage resistance of +20 or something like that, so you can attack a petrified enemy freely.

However you will not be doing a lot of damage.

 

Charmed, confused, and dominated should get a saving throw to snap out of this condition when they are attacked.

This would prevent the ability being used as a combat initiator, since the subject won't be suffering from the condition very long when attacked by multiple foes.

In addition these spells could no longer be used as hard cc, but would require a more tactical approach from the player,only dominating enemies which are not in danger of being attacked by you or their former allies.

 

It would also fix the situation most POE players have encountered multiple times, where the main tank gets gibbed with one of these abilities.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

 

I think the ability is fine in theory.

 

Scoring a knockdown with your fighter and getting in a couple free attacks is fair play.

 

Knocking down a pack of ogres for 25 seconds with a warding seal then recasting it on their prone bodies so that after the 25 seconds is finally over and they get back up, they active the fresh seal and fall back down again needs to go. I think lots of the spells need tweaking. For example paralyze is level 2 yet slicken is so much better. Iv noticed a few instances where higher level spells are garbage next to lower level ones.