Interrupts - do you use them?

[Infinitron]

I have reason to believe that PoE's Interrupt system - a system meant to be a generalization of D&D's spell interruption, allowing you to interrupt all actions and not just spells - is underappreciated and underutilized by players.

 

Yet this topic seems to be rarely discussed, as people prefer to talk about what's actively bothering them in the game, as opposed to a system that's just kind of there and doesn't make much of an impression either way.

 

Do you agree? If so, how would you improve Interrupts?

 

Personally, rather than making Interrupts more powerful in general, which could lead to absurd stun-locking characters builds, I'd look into how they could be made more specifically effective at performing the functionality that originally inspired them - interrupting spells and other powerful abilities that need time to cast.

 

Besides making the Interrupt system more noticeable to players, this would also make fast weapons and fast/burst spells like the various Minoletta's Missiles more attractive.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Infinitron

[Guest]

Underappricated,sure, but I'm not sure how one would underutilize a completely passive system (give weak interrupt duration weapons to party members statistically more likely to interrupt?).

 

It seems to me that if people aren't talking about it, that might be an indication that the system is fairly balanced. On paper, I still think Interrupting Blows is OP, but I seem to be in the minority on that issue, so...

[Elerond]

One improvement that I would make is to give player ability to turn on showing all interruption roll not only successful ones. Because it would help players to understand how well their current build can interrupt certain enemy types and give them ability to adjust their build more interrupt oriented if they want. 

[Guest]

Aside from rerolling a character for higher Perception or taking Interrupting Blows at the next level up (which may or may not be a smart thing to do), I'm not sure what a player would do with this information.

[Infinitron]

Underappricated,sure, but I'm not sure how one would underutilize a completely passive system (give weak interrupt duration weapons to party members statistically more likely to interrupt?).

 

 

It isn't really completely passive, though. Like you said, there are things you can do to make interrupts less, and also more effective and likely to occur. With enough min-maxing, you could even build an "interrupt on demand" character for disrupting dangerous enemies.

 

I mean, you wouldn't say that interrupting spells in the Infinity Engine games is "completely passive", right? It is a thing that you can do, on purpose and not just by happenstance. PoE interrupts are supposed to have a similar purpose.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Infinitron

[Elerond]

Aside from rerolling a character for higher Perception or taking Interrupting Blows at the next level up (which may or may not be a smart thing to do), I'm not sure what a player would do with this information.

 

There is also items that need to take in consideration in builds. If you know which enemies are weak to interrupt you can make deliberate choice and try to use that against them. But now you mainly need to make wild guess which make usually other build choices much more attractive. Which leads current situation where most people don't use weapons with long interrupt time, fast weapons to get more interrupts, or interrupting spells at all as they don't know how they really effect gameplay if players aren't willing to spent quite lot time to test how interrupt works.

 

Which is why first thing to improve interrupt mechanic is to make it more open and understandable. When they have done that and let players play around with it bit then we can start to make better suggestions how it could be further improved.

[Sensuki]

 

Written in October, 2014.

 

The most important part of that statement IMO is "although the interrupt mechanic isn't complicated in theory, the task of evaluating how helpful any given Interrupt or Concentration score is in combat is very difficult".

 

There's your problem right there. It's very hard to gauge how helpful interrupt is, have fun coming up with a scientific method to try and measure the efficacy of it

 

In the future, I think a simpler interrupt system would be better for this reason (and I in fact preferred the way it was in BG/IWD). Systemfans and Buildfans may disagree.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Sensuki

[Guest]

 

Underappricated,sure, but I'm not sure how one would underutilize a completely passive system (give weak interrupt duration weapons to party members statistically more likely to interrupt?).

 

 

It isn't really completely passive, though. Like you said, there are things you can do to make interrupts less, and also more effective and likely to occur. With enough min-maxing, you could even build an "interrupt on demand" character for disrupting dangerous enemies.

 

I mean, you wouldn't say that interrupting spells in the Infinity Engine games is "completely passive", right? It is a thing that you can do, on purpose and not just by happenstance. PoE interrupts are supposed to have a similar purpose.

 

Sure it is. Once you've done one of the limited number of things you can do to influence the system, all you can do after that is sit back and watch. Active = you do something (push a button, etc). Passive = you sit and watch.

 

Since interrupts are tied to your attack roll (which is random), I would be interested in seeing your "interrupt on demand" build.

 

I would also be interested in seeing your source re: "interrupts are supposed to have similar purpose".

 

Thanks in advance for providing both of those things in your next response.

[Guest]

 

Aside from rerolling a character for higher Perception or taking Interrupting Blows at the next level up (which may or may not be a smart thing to do), I'm not sure what a player would do with this information.

 

There is also items that need to take in consideration in builds. If you know which enemies are weak to interrupt you can make deliberate choice and try to use that against them. But now you mainly need to make wild guess which make usually other build choices much more attractive. Which leads current situation where most people don't use weapons with long interrupt time, fast weapons to get more interrupts, or interrupting spells at all as they don't know how they really effect gameplay if players aren't willing to spent quite lot time to test how interrupt works.

 

Which is why first thing to improve interrupt mechanic is to make it more open and understandable. When they have done that and let players play around with it bit then we can start to make better suggestions how it could be further improved.

 

Apologies for the double post.

 

The problem is that interrupts are random and don't work the way you seem to think they do. Durance, who has -3 Interrupt, still rolls a fair number of them (AoE spells for you). Pallegina, who has 27 Interrupt by the time I'm done with her, still hits people without interrupting them. Their random number was bigger than her random number and that particular attack rolled down the wrong side of the bell curve.

 

You seem to be starting from an assumption that the interrupt system is broken and in need of tweaking. May I ask why?

 

Last bit: the mechanics of this has been beat to death over in the Class Builds sub. If you want to know more, I recommend heading over there and finding that thread via the sticky.

 

Hope this helps. 

[Elerond]

 

 

Aside from rerolling a character for higher Perception or taking Interrupting Blows at the next level up (which may or may not be a smart thing to do), I'm not sure what a player would do with this information.

 

There is also items that need to take in consideration in builds. If you know which enemies are weak to interrupt you can make deliberate choice and try to use that against them. But now you mainly need to make wild guess which make usually other build choices much more attractive. Which leads current situation where most people don't use weapons with long interrupt time, fast weapons to get more interrupts, or interrupting spells at all as they don't know how they really effect gameplay if players aren't willing to spent quite lot time to test how interrupt works.

 

Which is why first thing to improve interrupt mechanic is to make it more open and understandable. When they have done that and let players play around with it bit then we can start to make better suggestions how it could be further improved.

 

Apologies for the double post.

 

The problem is that interrupts are random and don't work the way you seem to think they do. Durance, who has -3 Interrupt, still rolls a fair number of them (AoE spells for you). Pallegina, who has 27 Interrupt by the time I'm done with her, still hits people without interrupting them. Their random number was bigger than her random number and that particular attack rolled down the wrong side of the bell curve.

 

You seem to be starting from an assumption that the interrupt system is broken and in need of tweaking. May I ask why?

 

Last bit: the mechanics of this has been beat to death over in the Class Builds sub. If you want to know more, I recommend heading over there and finding that thread via the sticky.

 

Hope this helps. 

 

 

Lets put it in this way. When you have difficulty to predict how well your characters will interrupt enemies by looking their interrupt value how you can think that there isn't room to improve it?

 

If you need to look internet forums or do research by yourself to know how mechanic works there are room to improve how game represents it.

 

And I would also like to know why my characters interrupt value changes from one interrupt roll to another (at least combat log show different number). Which is reason why there should be option to see all interrupt rolls so that player can know if the mechanic is consist and fine tune their character's values if they want to use that mechanic. Now interrupt is something that which player has hard time to tell do it work, do it work as game says it works, is it effective, etc.. 

[Infinitron]

Yes, if Interrupts were meant to be nothing but a "happy miracle", a completely random thing that just happens once in a while like natural-20 critical hits in classic D&D, why would there even be a visible Interrupt stat affected by your character attributes?

 

It's obviously something we're meant to use more actively.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Infinitron

[Sensuki]

I think because there really wasn't anything else they could use to spread across six attributes since at the time they were not planning to have any defenses or action speed governed by the attributes.

I remember a time when Might (then Strength) governed Health and Inventory slots. Interrupt and Concentration were added because people did not receive the original layout of attributes very well.

If Interrupt and Concentration were dropped from the Attributes, I don't think it would make that much (if any) difference to what people picked, now that they have Action Speed and Deflection (when at the time, they did not). Not saying they should do that or that it would be better, though. Just that it would not affect the majority of players.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Sensuki

[Guest]

@inifinitron - ah, so this *is* nothing more than speculation and your expectations then? Got it.

 

@elerond - The number changes because a modifier is applied depending on whether your attack is a graze (-25), a hit (unmodified), or a crit (+25). I'm curious as to whether or not this is all explained in the cyclopedia. Will have to check when I get home.

 

Edited November 26, 2015 by Achilles

[Infinitron]

@inifinitron - ah, so this *is* nothing more than speculation and your expectations then? Got it.

 

 

Well, there's also the description of the spell "Thrust of Tattered Veils": http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Thrust_of_Tattered_Veils

 

having a high chance to disrupt enemy spellcasters.

 

 

A spell with a high Interrupt strength is described as a tool for actively disrupting enemy spellcasting. Implication enough for you?

Edited November 25, 2015 by Infinitron

[Sensuki]

Casting that spell is no different from auto-attacking with a Morningstar however, only in that it is an active ability and for the most part consumes a per-rest resource. If you want to interrupt an enemy action - knock them prone instead, much more effective.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Sensuki

[Guest]

All that means is that it has a longer interrupt duration.

[Fenixp]

Yes, and while I understand how are they supposed to work in theory, I have never seen a tangible result from using spells which inflict interrupt (interrupting weapons are useful, but also completely forgettable and passive). In Baldur's Gate, interrupting a spellcasters *feels* good and is immediately apparent - you fire off your magic missilez, he/she goes "Your Mother Smells of ... Ugh egh ugh eh eh ... What was I doing again?" and is useless in foreseeable future. That's something I have never encountered in Pillars, which is why I generally avoid using interrupts actively.

[Elerond]

All that means is that it has a longer interrupt duration.

 

Although that isn't what spell originally did. But it was changed that when they changed interrupt system, although they didn't change it description. Yet again game fails to tell player what effects its interrupt specified thing has.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Elerond

[Infinitron]

 

All that means is that it has a longer interrupt duration.

 

Although that isn't what spell originally did. But it was changed that when they changed interrupt system, although they didn't change it description. Yet again game fails to tell player what effects its interrupt specified thing has.

 

 

I mentioned that spell because its description directly implies that the Interrupt system is meant to be a generalized equivalent of D&D's spell disruption mechanics, while Achilles seems to think there's no relation between the two things.

 

Perhaps there's a direct quote from Josh about this, but I can't find it right now. I'll try to ask him about this topic.

 

 

Yes, and while I understand how are they supposed to work in theory, I have never seen a tangible result from using spells which inflict interrupt (interrupting weapons are useful, but also completely forgettable and passive). In Baldur's Gate, interrupting a spellcasters *feels* good and is immediately apparent - you fire off your magic missilez, he/she goes "Your Mother Smells of ... Ugh egh ugh eh eh ... What was I doing again?" and is useless in foreseeable future. That's something I have never encountered in Pillars, which is why I generally avoid using interrupts actively.

 

I've found that in general usage, Interrupts can be useful as a tool for extricating yourself from melee engagement when you don't want to waste a Prone-inflicting ability to do that. It does feel pretty satisfying when you manage pull it off. "Haha, catch me now, sucker!"

 

But they should be good for more than that.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Infinitron

[Guest]

@fenixp I'm curious, how would one "use interrupts actively".

[Guest]

@infinitron they are good for more than that (in fact it's never occurred to me to use them to break engagement). When an interrupt occurs, time is added to the opponents action timer (amount is dependent upon the interrupt rating of the weapon, i.e. a lot for morning stars and not very much for daggers). If you have 2 or 3 party members all attaching a single powerful enemy, you can keep adding time to their action timer until they are dead.

 

You just don't get to do anything actively to make that happen (aside from build party members who are statistically more likely to cause interrupts and are proficient with weapons that cause longer ones when they do occur).

[Elerond]

@fenixp I'm curious, how would one "use interrupts actively".

 

By targeting high interrupt attacks/spells to enemies that are using their powerful abilities/spells. 

[Guest]

But interrupts are random (determined by attack rolls and the opponents concentration rating). So he doesn't use spells against enemies? What about melee/ranged attacks?

[Elerond]

But interrupts are random (determined by attack rolls and the opponents concentration rating). So he doesn't use spells against enemies? What about melee/ranged attacks?

 

Everything in PoE has some sort random factor in it, so everything you do you need to take account the randomization. Biggest problem with interrupts is that it is much more difficult to estimate, compared to other actions, how probable your success will be, which makes active use of it quite difficult thing to do, but not impossible, although currently it feels that it isn't worth the effort.

[Teioh_White]

A Barb with Mabec's Morning Star and interrupting Blows with a decent perception score's always been a favorite of mine. Really slows down the incoming damage of the enemies frontlines.

 

Other than that, I guess I use Hunting Bows to semi lock down a mage with a Ranger? I tend to go more for on-crit effects, so Interrupts are more a consolation prize.