What's the point in beta patches if you don't fix the reported bugs?

[Jojobobo]

Jojobobo,

I may not agree with all you say here, but you've been testing and pushing to make the final "major" bugs of this game corrected.

I just wanted to say thank you for this. (I guarantee there's no irony involved here.)

I'm sure the devs don't actually care much about any one individual's belly-aching, but I guess if it gets put about on the forum enough they may be inclined to get a bit more of a move on. I'm guessing I'm trying to say, whenever you need a whiny nitpicking douchebag - I'm your man.

 

Jojobobo, on 14 Jul 2016 - 07:17 AM, said:

I guess all of you standing in defense of Obsidian just love it when you tell a company there's a problem with one of their products and they literally ignore it when they could fix it. Strangely enough, I don't like it when I have to deal with a faulty product that a company has had years to perfect.

Well they fixed the reported issues with fixes in beta, but didn't introduce any new fixes. I'm pretty sure those are called "release candidates" and not "betas", but... Whatever.

The subforum for it is called "Patch Beta Bugs and Support" implying it's not necessarily a release candidate. I thought what defines a release candidate was where there were no known important bugs left in, which I think Confident Aim does qualify as - even if it isn't gamebreaking.

 

With regards to the class balance, I can't speak for the Barbarian (I've not really dipped my beak into one yet, I think I'll try one while I wait for them to fix the Fighter) but with the Rogue their were several abilities that you would just never take for any reason. The rebalance has really seen to making these abilities now pretty satisfying - particularly Riposte and Adept Evasion. They did a pretty good job in that respect.

[Chippy]

Are there any further patches planned? I think I read somewhere that these latest were final.

 

Thanks

[house2fly]

That's the main reason I decided to ignore the betas, since they almost never fix anything people report so why bother.

 

Edit: I also don't understand why they keep rebalancing classes instead of fixing the damn game. Who is asking for those changes?

people find balance important. The bug OP is up in arms about is a problem specifically because it affects balance.

[Karkarov]

 

That's the main reason I decided to ignore the betas, since they almost never fix anything people report so why bother.

 

Edit: I also don't understand why they keep rebalancing classes instead of fixing the damn game. Who is asking for those changes?

people find balance important. The bug OP is up in arms about is a problem specifically because it affects balance.

Except it doesn't really because of a few reasons.

 

1:  He can pick other talents.

 

2: It still isn't half as game breaking as he claims it is, and in it's normal state it actually is a pretty "meh" talent.

 

3: Pretty sure in 3.02 some people claimed for them it didn't even work, so being OP is better than not working period.

 

4: Don't we already have a Obsidian post stating there will be some more patching where this will likely be fixed?

[Jojobobo]

 

 

That's the main reason I decided to ignore the betas, since they almost never fix anything people report so why bother.

 

Edit: I also don't understand why they keep rebalancing classes instead of fixing the damn game. Who is asking for those changes?

people find balance important. The bug OP is up in arms about is a problem specifically because it affects balance.

Except it doesn't really because of a few reasons.

 

1:  He can pick other talents.

 

2: It still isn't half as game breaking as he claims it is, and in it's normal state it actually is a pretty "meh" talent.

 

3: Pretty sure in 3.02 some people claimed for them it didn't even work, so being OP is better than not working period.

 

4: Don't we already have a Obsidian post stating there will be some more patching where this will likely be fixed?

 

1) As I mentioned, there's very few good abilities for that level 3 slot. If you're going for a Apprentice Sneak Attack build than a case could be made for Knock Down, but both Defender and Guardian Stance gimp the Fighter to an extent and they're not very good. It's simply not enjoyable to consciously pick a worse option when if things were working correctly you could have a better one. Also, if you know so much about the game and what I should and should not be doing, maybe you should stop calling abilities "talents".

 

2) Now you're going way off base, I never said it was "game-breaking". However, as I do keep saying, it's like the equivalent of a further 10 Might - at which point I may just be cheating. Maybe you enjoy cheating in your games to lower the difficulty, but I don't.

 

3) I think it's more likely people weren't realising it was working as the damage buff isn't represented in your damage range as far as I can tell, so you have to watch the combat numbers to work out what's going on. The graze to hit conversion certainly works, and is very useful throughout the game.

 

4) They made that post, but then said 3.03 was the last patch. Sorry for assuming when people say something as plainly as "last" patch that I shouldn't just take that on face value and believe the older comment was in error. They've now rectified their mistake, but at the time it seemed pretty cut and dry that they weren't making any other patches.

 

The ridiculous thing is, you keep telling me that I'm getting irritated by the most minor of things and act like anything that's not perfect would upset me, but there's loads of bugs that I've consistently ignored and not made any sort of fuss about. The bug where you're drinking a potion (usually a health potion early game, when you need that extra endurance to win the fight) and the animation plays but nothing happens - and then you die. Or when a summon dies paralysed or petrified and then proceeds to show up in every map from then on, as far as I know this has never been fixed and it sucks the immersion right of the game. There's also extremely minor things, like cloaks not showing on mac, but regardless it is still a thing.

 

I'm fine looking past those flaws as you can just reload to sort them out (as in for the paralysis bug, reload to a point where your summon didn't die, if you save when it's dead that bug is permanent) or they're minor and cosmetic. But when it's a bug in their actual mechanics it is annoying, and when they handled it like they did, that's also annoying. As I mentioned earlier, any character building choice you have to make differently in a game because of a bug (e.g. avoiding Confident Aim, or respecing it out) feels extremely unrewarding for a player to have to do.

 

But I guess just carry on in your dream world, thinking that this is appropriate customer service and that absolutely nothing should have been done at the time when this bug was reported in the beta. If you think it's fine for companies to act like this, then I pity you for how other businesses must be taking you for a chump in everyday life.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Jojobobo

[Elric Galad]

1) When confident aim stacks on ennemies, it is no more "optional".

[Loren Tyr]

 

2: It still isn't half as game breaking as he claims it is, and in it's normal state it actually is a pretty "meh" talent.

 

 

It's really not. Unless you think any of the +X% damage talents is "meh", then your standards for "meh" are just vastly different I suppose. Because those generally are in the range of +10% to +20% damage, and conditional on any number of factors (weapon used, type of damage, sneak attack conditions, etc.) and/or with penalties to other stats attached (eg. Savage Attack). By comparison Confident Aim (correctly implemented) increases the mean base damage by about 8% (without conditions, other than using a weapon), and the graze to hit conversion is equivalent to about a 3% damage bonus as well (varies with accuracy, of course). Moreover, because the +8% is on the base damage it scales all regular +X% damage modifiers as well, so a crit effectively adds +54%, Might adds +3.3% per point, etc. That adds up rather quickly. A small downside is that it doesn't increase the maximum damage of course (but it does increase consistency, also valuable) so it isn't fully comparable to +X% damage, but the math very clearly points to it being at least on par with most if not all of the other +damage talents.

 

In the current, bugged implementation, CA gives about a +48% on base damage instead and also vastly increases the maximum damage. So while not game-breaking (though no one claimed it to be, I believe), it makes it vastly overpowered; it's a bit like permanently doing Crit damage, except better because all damage bonuses are scaled up as well and you have an additional +74% damage when you genuinely do Crit. 

Edited July 15, 2016 by Loren Tyr

[hobbitmonk]

Right because you complained about the confident aim bug non stop up to now, you never said anything about the "game breaking" bug caused by stat stacking on saves which got fixed.  Oh wait, you did.  Pages of it.  When you thank Obsidian for fixing the bug you claim made the game "100% unplayable" your complaints might carry a smidge of weight.  Until then it just sounds like someone intentionally gimping themselves complaining because gimping themselves makes the game hard.

 

I hate to be "that guy", but at least for me on Linux, the stacking bug appears to still not be completely fixed. One of the mercenary wizards in Cragholdt had Deflection so high it was impossible to hit him (somewhere around 250, 300 when he decided to be funny and throw up Arcane Veil too). Luckily I could avoid him and get past him and in to fight Concelhaut. In a weird kind of irony, when I came back out of the tower I used my newly acquired skull summon to kill the mercenary wizard because there's no way my monk was getting through such sky-high Deflection any other way.

 

Point being is I'll still be a bit wary myself, since it seems this particularly bug still hasn't been definitely squashed. So I do sympathise with OP's frustrations (newbie here though I am) when it appears that known bugs just aren't getting fixed between beta and release.

[Blunderboss]

Been waiting for 3.03 to fix all the issues so i can finally play finished pillars of eternity ... 

 

Well it seems i will have to wait a bit longer...

 

[MaxQuest]

^ Well... they don't call it Eternity 2 for nothing.

[Jojobobo]

In the current, bugged implementation, CA gives about a +48% on base damage instead and also vastly increases the maximum damage. So while not game-breaking (though no one claimed it to be, I believe), it makes it vastly overpowered; it's a bit like permanently doing Crit damage, except better because all damage bonuses are scaled up as well and you have an additional +74% damage when you genuinely do Crit. 

I think that really is what sucks, as Fighters have above average accuracy anyway (without even touching on Disciplined Barrage or the high likelihood you'll be picking up a Weapon Focus to go along with the Specialization/Mastery) so you crit all the time - which nerfs the difficulty to an enormous extent on what should just be a regular and decent ability to take (on par with the other damage boosting talents and abilities, as you say).

 

On the solo level 13 Fighter I keep moaning about I have 3005 crits, 7550 hits and yet only 1568 enemies defeated - just to put into perspective the buttload of crits a Fighter does (almost 2 per enemy on average) and how that pairs horribly with the current Confident Aim bug. While godmode may have been fun as a ten year old for an hour or two, these days I appreciate a good challenge and enjoy harsh difficulty. So long as they are implementing a fix I'm more or less happy though, I'll just wait it out with a different build until the next patch. I still stand by that ignoring the bug wasn't a great idea in any case.

Edited July 15, 2016 by Jojobobo

[house2fly]

1) When confident aim stacks on ennemies, it is no more "optional".

which enemies have it?

[Elric Galad]

 

1) When confident aim stacks on ennemies, it is no more "optional".

which enemies have it?

 

 

Sly Clyrdel, if I remember well, was famous in 3.03 for his one-shot strike, apparently due to Confident Aim stacking bug.

[Yosharian]

Can someone explain, in a detailed manner, exactly what this bug is (not just an example) and how it affects the game?

[Sir Ray of Light]

Take a look at e. g. post #32 in this thread.

 

Btw: I don’t know what to say about the never-ending “excuses” or “solutions” from some people.

 

These…

 

- This issue

- Psychic Backlash

- Shield Bash

- Cannot change party

- Brighthollow Upstairs

 

…are existing and more or less confirmed 3.03 bugs (affect multiple users, no known fix even from devs). Please stop playing down these issues. You are not helping. Don’t shoot the messenger. People are not making these things up. It’s okay to talk about these issues, even if they are not fundamentally game-breaking. It’s probably helping to get them fixed. It’s productive. Thanks.

Edited July 17, 2016 by Sir Ray of Light

[Yosharian]

Take a look at e. g. post #32 in this thread.

 

Btw: I don’t know what to say about the never-ending “excuses” or “solutions” from some people.

 

These…

 

- This issue

- Psychic Backlash

- Shield Bash

- Cannot change party

- Brighthollow Upstairs

 

…are existing and more or less confirmed 3.03 bugs (affect multiple users, no known fix even from devs). Please stop playing down these issues. You are not helping. Don’t shoot the messenger. People are not making these things up. It’s okay to talk about these issues, even if they are not fundamentally game-breaking. It’s probably helping to get them fixed. It’s productive. Thanks.

Can't see post numbers on mobile.

[Sir Ray of Light]

Here you go:

 

 

 

2: It still isn't half as game breaking as he claims it is, and in it's normal state it actually is a pretty "meh" talent.
 

 

It's really not. Unless you think any of the +X% damage talents is "meh", then your standards for "meh" are just vastly different I suppose. Because those generally are in the range of +10% to +20% damage, and conditional on any number of factors (weapon used, type of damage, sneak attack conditions, etc.) and/or with penalties to other stats attached (eg. Savage Attack). By comparison Confident Aim (correctly implemented) increases the mean base damage by about 8% (without conditions, other than using a weapon), and the graze to hit conversion is equivalent to about a 3% damage bonus as well (varies with accuracy, of course). Moreover, because the +8% is on the base damage it scales all regular +X% damage modifiers as well, so a crit effectively adds +54%, Might adds +3.3% per point, etc. That adds up rather quickly. A small downside is that it doesn't increase the maximum damage of course (but it does increase consistency, also valuable) so it isn't fully comparable to +X% damage, but the math very clearly points to it being at least on par with most if not all of the other +damage talents.

 

In the current, bugged implementation, CA gives about a +48% on base damage instead and also vastly increases the maximum damage. So while not game-breaking (though no one claimed it to be, I believe), it makes it vastly overpowered; it's a bit like permanently doing Crit damage, except better because all damage bonuses are scaled up as well and you have an additional +74% damage when you genuinely do Crit. 

 

[Yosharian]

 

Here you go:

 

 

 

2: It still isn't half as game breaking as he claims it is, and in it's normal state it actually is a pretty "meh" talent.

 

 

It's really not. Unless you think any of the +X% damage talents is "meh", then your standards for "meh" are just vastly different I suppose. Because those generally are in the range of +10% to +20% damage, and conditional on any number of factors (weapon used, type of damage, sneak attack conditions, etc.) and/or with penalties to other stats attached (eg. Savage Attack). By comparison Confident Aim (correctly implemented) increases the mean base damage by about 8% (without conditions, other than using a weapon), and the graze to hit conversion is equivalent to about a 3% damage bonus as well (varies with accuracy, of course). Moreover, because the +8% is on the base damage it scales all regular +X% damage modifiers as well, so a crit effectively adds +54%, Might adds +3.3% per point, etc. That adds up rather quickly. A small downside is that it doesn't increase the maximum damage of course (but it does increase consistency, also valuable) so it isn't fully comparable to +X% damage, but the math very clearly points to it being at least on par with most if not all of the other +damage talents.

 

In the current, bugged implementation, CA gives about a +48% on base damage instead and also vastly increases the maximum damage. So while not game-breaking (though no one claimed it to be, I believe), it makes it vastly overpowered; it's a bit like permanently doing Crit damage, except better because all damage bonuses are scaled up as well and you have an additional +74% damage when you genuinely do Crit. 

 

 

That doesn't explain it.  I don't want a summary of the net effect, I want to know exactly what's happening.

 

Is the percentage of graze->hit conversion wrong?

 

Why is it doing more damage than normal, and on which hits is it doing this?

 

Don't get me wrong though, I appreciate you finding the post.

 

Edit: thank you for the PM, SRoL.

 

The bug seems to be as follows: when loading a savegame containing a character with the CA ability, the damage multiplier is applied incorrectly and affects both the minimum damage and the maximum damage (CA is only supposed to increase minimum damage).

 

Could not tell from the threads provided whether it's doing this when CA activates (i.e. on 20% of grazes) or all the time.

 

If I respec to remove CA, this will remove the effect presumably?

Edited July 17, 2016 by Yosharian

[Baladas]

@ Yoshharian:

 

Here is the most detailed post on it I have seen:

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/88090-303-confident-aim-still-bugged/

[Yosharian]

@ Yoshharian:

 

Here is the most detailed post on it I have seen:

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/88090-303-confident-aim-still-bugged/

Yes, I've read that one.  Doesn't answer my updated questions, but thank you anyway.

[AndreaColombo]

EDIT: nvm.

Edited July 17, 2016 by AndreaColombo

[Loren Tyr]

Yes, I've read that one.  Doesn't answer my updated questions, but thank you anyway.

 

Confident Aim in its current state increases the minimum base damage by 120%, ie. a 10 - 15 Hunting Bow now has a 22 - 15 range. So technically it still only increases the minimum damage, but given the way damage is rolled this is equivalent to a 15 - 22 range. The minimum, average and maximum base damage are thus all increased by about 48% (varies a bit per weapon, obviously).

 

This applies to all hits, not just converted ones. The graze-to-hit percentage is fine as far as I know (didn't check explicitly, but I gave Aloth a very extensive beating testing this with different weapons, so would have noticed if it was considerably off).

 

The reason this happens is that when loading a game the relevant multiplier is initialised to 1. For a Confident Aim'ed Fighter, it is then incremented by 1.2 (where it should be multiplied by 1.2), and as such ends up as 2.2 => +120% minimum damage. I haven't tried respeccing, but given the way it arises it should disappear if you respec.You probably need to save and reload first though, I suspect that directly after respeccing it will end up at 1.83 first. I will test this tonight.

[Loren Tyr]

I've checked, respeccing to remove Confident Aim from your fighter works as predicted: immediately after respeccing and removing CA your fighter will be at +83.3% damage. Once you save and reload though, minimum damage is back were it's supposed to be. So the slight bit of good news is that your save isn't corrupted in this sense, it really is purely a loading bug.

 

Also checked the graze to crit % on CA by the way, since I was cutting up Aloth anyway: exactly 5 out of 25 grazes converted, so that's fine (normally it isn't that neat either).

[Karkarov]

 

 

It's really not. Unless you think any of the +X% damage talents is "meh", then your standards for "meh" are just vastly different I suppose.

Just a very fast and dirty response.  You are forgetting the key factor.  It is a Fighter talent.  It only converts grazes to hits, not hits to crits, and the Fighter is one of the highest accuracy characters in the game so already grazes less often than most melee characters to begin with.  Is it a dps increase, sure, but it is hardly make or break or this huge must have talent.  The fact that in one patch it didn't work period and many players didn't even notice is telling.

[Yosharian]

Ah well, I'll just respec into the other ability instead then

 

Thanks for the info guys

Edited July 18, 2016 by Yosharian