Injury System is way too brutal

[Katarack21]

Fun fact - only 0.4% of players completed P1 or PotD (at least in GOG's statistics). C'est la vie, I guess.

Fun fact: That's a pretty meaningless statistic. Only 10% of people who bought the game *every completed it at all* on Steam. And...that's pretty normal for a game. Most people who buy games *never finish them*, let alone *beat them on the hardest setting*.

 

All that statistic tells you, in actually, is that grognards are a very small part of the population.

[Sedrefilos]

 

 

Most people who buy games *never finish them*, 

 Why do they buy them then? 

[Katarack21]

 

 

 

Most people who buy games *never finish them*, 

 Why do they buy them then? 

 

There's a *lot* of theories about that, but nobody really knows. The gaming industry has been trying to solve this problem for a number of years.

[Christliar]

 

 

Anyway, I think the only way to properly cater to both sides is to have more drastic handholding on normal and remove most of it on hard and above, because even casual players seem to be averse to lowering their difficulty. PoE tried to do this by limiting camping supplies at higher difficulties but it didn't work so well for all the reasons people have discussed.

 

I'm not saying that the business side of things is bad, I was just stating it as fact, so I have no more comment about that. I also agree with this bit that I quoted, the game has 5 difficulties, so why not cater to grognards on PotD? Normal can have all the handholding they can possibly cram in there, who cares. It raises the question where we draw the line between Story Mode and other modes, though, if every difficulty below PotD starts aggressively handholding to the point of the game playing itself and giving you the illusion that you are doing something.

 

@Katarack, I'm painfully aware that only very few people that buy the game complete it, and of those that complete it, only 4% complete it on PotD. And that's what I was saying, that very few people want difficulty and that's why they removed any possibility of actual challenge appearing. Sure, they'll try to hand-craft each encounter a bit better, but that rarely works consistently or even half the time.

 

I also have no answer to the question of why people don't complete games. One reason is that people buy them impulsively on a sale and then let them rot in their backlogs forever, I'm also guilty of this, but only rarely. Of those who start the game, however, I hypothesize there are myriads of reasons - they get bored, the game is too long, too difficult and frustrating, they get distracted by other games, they realize it's not a genre they enjoy aaaand I dunno. 90% seems like a lot for just these reasons.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Christliar

[Katarack21]

 

 

 

Anyway, I think the only way to properly cater to both sides is to have more drastic handholding on normal and remove most of it on hard and above, because even casual players seem to be averse to lowering their difficulty. PoE tried to do this by limiting camping supplies at higher difficulties but it didn't work so well for all the reasons people have discussed.

 

I'm not saying that the business side of things is bad, I was just stating it as fact, so I have no more comment about that. I also agree with this bit that I quoted, the game has 5 difficulties, so why not cater to grognards on PotD? Normal can have all the handholding they can possibly cram in there, who cares.

 

@Katarack, I'm painfully aware that only very few people that buy the game complete it, and of those that complete it, only 4% complete it on PotD. And that's what I was saying, that very few people want difficulty and that's why they removed any possibility of actual challenge appearing. Sure, they'll try to hand-craft each encounter a bit better, but that rarely works consistently or even half the time.

 

My problem is that you're interpreting this as a desire for lack of difficulty when it's not indicating that. All it's indicating is that very few people beat the game on hard difficulty, which is to be expected because *very few people beat the game at all*. In the context of "less than 10% of people ever beat the game at all", then "less than 4% beat it on the hardest setting" doesn't imply a lack of desire for difficulty, it's *just an expected result of the lack of people who beat the game period combined with the fact that fewer people lay on difficult settings*.

 

It's not indicative of anything wider or larger than simply that--fewer people play on harder difficulty settings and very few beat the game period. Any interpretation beyond that is just you.

[Answermancer]

 

 

 

Most people who buy games *never finish them*, 

 Why do they buy them then? 

 

 

I can answer this a bit.

 

I buy a ton of games because I am interested in exploring different aspects of them, different mechanics, different settings, different art, etc. Mechanics tend to be most interesting to me though, since I enjoy tinkering with them and learning them.

 

"Finishing" them has zero interest for me unless I really like the story OR there are things that change and remain interesting for the entire play through, and that's almost never the case. Basically it's the journey, not the destination.

 

Another thing I've had happen (and others have told me they do this too) is stopping right before the end of the game, psychologically it's something like "I don't want it to end, so I won't get to the end."

 

That said I did beat Pillars on Hard, and more than once, because I really like it both mechanically (I love messing with character builds, optimizing, etc.) and in terms of story everything else. But it's an exception, I probably only get to the "end" of like 5% of the games I play.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Answermancer

[Christliar]

My problem is that you're interpreting this as a desire for lack of difficulty when it's not indicating that. All it's indicating is that very few people beat the game on hard difficulty, which is to be expected because *very few people beat the game at all*. In the context of "less than 10% of people ever beat the game at all", then "less than 4% beat it on the hardest setting" doesn't imply a lack of desire for difficulty, it's *just an expected result of the lack of people who beat the game period combined with the fact that fewer people lay on difficult settings*.

 

It's not indicative of anything wider or larger than simply that--fewer people play on harder difficulty settings and very few beat the game period. Any interpretation beyond that is just you.

 

 

 

Purely scientifically this is correct, we have no way of knowing why people don't play on higher difficulties, in this case PotD, just that they don't, but that's obvious. It's way more interesting why they don't and my "interpretation" is that they either don't want higher difficulties because they "want to relax" (I've heard this many times, but it's anecdotal) or they think they can't handle it. At the end of the day, all I can say as 100% fact is that they don't complete the game on the highest difficulty and I'm fine with that.

 

The problem is that Obsidian can only say and know that as well.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Christliar

[demeisen]

​

In that sense, the massive number of casual players subsidizes the more hardcore crowd, so there needs to be a balance, and apparently a lot of people thought PoE was scary and hard even on Normal ...

 

Anyway, I think the only way to properly cater to both sides is to have more drastic handholding on normal and remove most of it on hard and above, because even casual players seem to be averse to lowering their difficulty.

 

Agreed with both items above.

 

About the second, I agree that's probably the only solution, but even that is problematic for the reason you state: everyone wants to "feel elite" by maxing the difficulty, and then complain that the game is too hard.  At the same time, there were just as many complaints about PotD being too *easy*, and if it's too easy, there's nothing else to step up to.

 

I don't blame game studios: it's just an unfortunate reality of the era.  The only solution I can see for that is to make it more obvious in the GUI.  "Look, we really mean it!"  For example: I'd like Hard be about what PotD is in POE1, and PotD to be about that increment again.  A GUI might only expose the upper 1-2 difficulties if you click a box saying, "I know what I'm in for - please show me no mercy".

 

One thing I give props to Obsidian for is that they didn't cheese PotD by simply making everything a massive damage sponge.  Instead, they re-tuned encounters so you got more creatures to fight at once, and some harder subtypes in the mix.  It felt so much better than games that simply adjust a damage multiplier, so that everything takes 398029223 hits to kill in a tedious slog.  (There was a multiplier, IIRC, but a mild one that didn't give that annoying bullet-sponge feel).  Nicely done on that front, Obsidian.  It worked well, and I hope you'll use a similar approach for POE2.

​

Edited November 21, 2017 by demeisen

[demeisen]

​​

 

 

 

Most people who buy games *never finish them*, 

 Why do they buy them then? 

 

 

​Speaking only for myself, quite a few reasons.  Sometimes I just want to support a smaller 1-5 man studio doing something I think is pretty cool, even though I probably won't get into the game.  Sometimes I think I'll like a game, and then it turns out I don't.  Sometimes I fully intent to finish, but get distracted by something and don't get back to it.  Sometimes I pick something up on a GOG sale super cheap and then forget I bought it.

​

​I finish maybe 20% of the games I buy.  I finished POE 3 times (hard, potd, and solo wiz potd).  It's vanishingly rare I re-play a game even once, given real life time constraints.  It has to be a bloody good game for that to happen.  Probably only a handful of games have I ever played through 3 times (not counting trivially short ones like 1970's arcade games).

​

​

[Boeroer]

I have limited time - and when I buy a game and find out that I don't like it that much I quit. Why should I waste my precious time with it?

 

Of course this has something to to with the perceived investment. If 40 EUR would be a lot of money for me I'd be more determined to finish the game. But if it's not that much for me (and if I think my free time is worth more than that) my motivation to finish it - although I don't like it - very much goes down to zero.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Boeroer

[Sedrefilos]

I usually don't buy a agme that I definately know I'll like. There are so many let's play videos for every single game out there. Why spend money blindly (or semi-blindly) on a (usually) expensive game if you don't know if you're gonna play it to the end?

Unless money is not a problem, so it's ok I guess.

But I get it. Games are like movies this days. Spam everywhere with their "awesomeness" and most people are not scrutinizing geeks like us here so they buy based on cover. Still, fool me once it's on you, fool me twice...

Edited November 21, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[Answermancer]

I usually don't buy a agme that I definately know I'll like. There are so many let's play videos for every single game out there. Why spend money blindly (or semi-blindly) on a (usually) expensive game if you don't know if you're gonna play it to the end?

Unless money is not a problem, so it's ok I guess.

But I get it. Games are like movies this days. Spam everywhere with their "awesomeness" and most people are not scrutinizing geeks like us here so they buy based on cover. Still, fool me once it's on you, fool me twice...

Well for me, I enjoy lots of types of games and I would rather play 50 games in a year and play each one 25% of the way through than play 5 of them all the way to end since, like I said, the "end" doesn't really matter to me at all. It's an arbitrary point like any other.

 

Of course, there are exceptions and those are the games that I play to the end and even replay (Pillars and Tyranny are both recent examples), and games that are sandboxes without any real "end" (which I tend to enjoy), and games that just have "matches" (like a MOBA), and games that are all about replayability with different settings (like Civ) etc., etc.

 

I used to finish more games when I was younger because I had more time than money, now the ratio is inverted and I play far more games but get to the end of relatively few of them.

[Wormerine]

 

One thing I give props to Obsidian for is that they didn't cheese PotD by simply making everything a massive damage sponge.  Instead, they re-tuned encounters so you got more creatures to fight at once, and some harder subtypes in the mix.  It felt so much better than games that simply adjust a damage multiplier, so that everything takes 398029223 hits to kill in a tedious slog.  (There was a multiplier, IIRC, but a mild one that didn't give that annoying bullet-sponge feel).  Nicely done on that front, Obsidian.  It worked well, and I hope you'll use a similar approach for POE2.

​

 

Yhhh, I am pretty sure PotD takes hard and cranks everyone’s statistics up. It was hard which took normal and added more enemies/harder compositions. Either way both worked well.

[Answermancer]

So in the stream today, Josh mentioned that they are nerfing injuries, I think the gist was:

• 4 injuries still = death
• Most injuries will no longer reduce max health, with a few exceptions where that's the major effect, rather than stat loss
• The ones that do lower max health will lower it by 15% instead of 25%

What does everyone think?

[KDubya]

The change seems fine but the current system was working as well.

 

Without rest restrictions what difference does it make?

 

If you are playing Iron Man Mode you'll rest anytime anyone gets injured.

 

If not you can just quicksave before the next encounter and press on as long as no one is at three injuries as that would be idiotic. If you win the encounter keep going, if you lose just re-load and rest.

 

With unlimited money and unlimited carrying capacity it'll be easy enough to have a fully stocked Chuckwagon full of food available. PotD is easy enough tha extra boosts from super food is not going to be required so having an endless supply of hardtack will serve you just as well.

[Aramintai]

So in the stream today, Josh mentioned that they are nerfing injuries, I think the gist was:

• 4 injuries still = death
• Most injuries will no longer reduce max health, with a few exceptions where that's the major effect, rather than stat loss
• The ones that do lower max health will lower it by 15% instead of 25%

What does everyone think?

I like it much better. Less reasons to spam rest. However, it appears that some wounds that don't reduce health are considered minor, so I've nitpicky question - why would you die of 4 minor wounds?

[Katarack21]

 

So in the stream today, Josh mentioned that they are nerfing injuries, I think the gist was:

• 4 injuries still = death
• Most injuries will no longer reduce max health, with a few exceptions where that's the major effect, rather than stat loss
• The ones that do lower max health will lower it by 15% instead of 25%

What does everyone think?

I like it much better. Less reasons to spam rest. However, it appears that some wounds that don't reduce health are considered minor, so I've nitpicky question - why would you die of 4 minor wounds?

 

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I understand like a gaping wound, but I don't care who you are--a rash, a sprained wrist, a swollen eye, and a wrenched knee do not combine into a lethal effect.

[Zap Gun For Hire]

The change seems fine but the current system was working as well.

 

Without rest restrictions what difference does it make?

 

If you are playing Iron Man Mode you'll rest anytime anyone gets injured.

 

If not you can just quicksave before the next encounter and press on as long as no one is at three injuries as that would be idiotic. If you win the encounter keep going, if you lose just re-load and rest.

 

With unlimited money and unlimited carrying capacity it'll be easy enough to have a fully stocked Chuckwagon full of food available. PotD is easy enough tha extra boosts from super food is not going to be required so having an endless supply of hardtack will serve you just as well.

 

Directly from Josh Sawyer, paraphrasing (starts at 36:30 on the Twitch stream during a discussion about traps [which are also being tweaked when it comes to player use, but that's another topic]):  We want to encourage people to be careful, but we don't want to encourage rest-spam.  

 

This presumably that would also cover 'save-scumming'.

 

Also Josh seems to agree that 25%/50% health loss is too much of a penalty for a frontline combatant, which was one of the main things discussed in this thread.

 

Another point seems to be why they want to encourage resting.  Paraphrasing again, resting is intended to be more centered around food bonuses gained and lost.  I interpret this to mean that rest-spamming for injuries isn't really what they intended for the rest mechanic, so that's one reason the injury system is being tweaked.

 

====

 

Sounds good overall to me, FWIW. Four injuries = autodeath (except on Story Mode), some cause health loss and some don't.  Less of a health penalty for those that do.  And nice balance between injuries matter and injuries matter TOO much.

[KDubya]

 

The change seems fine but the current system was working as well.

 

Without rest restrictions what difference does it make?

 

If you are playing Iron Man Mode you'll rest anytime anyone gets injured.

 

If not you can just quicksave before the next encounter and press on as long as no one is at three injuries as that would be idiotic. If you win the encounter keep going, if you lose just re-load and rest.

 

With unlimited money and unlimited carrying capacity it'll be easy enough to have a fully stocked Chuckwagon full of food available. PotD is easy enough tha extra boosts from super food is not going to be required so having an endless supply of hardtack will serve you just as well.

 

Directly from Josh Sawyer, paraphrasing (starts at 36:30 on the Twitch stream during a discussion about traps [which are also being tweaked when it comes to player use, but that's another topic]):  We want to encourage people to be careful, but we don't want to encourage rest-spam.  

 

This presumably that would also cover 'save-scumming'.

 

Also Josh seems to agree that 25%/50% health loss is too much of a penalty for a frontline combatant, which was one of the main things discussed in this thread.

 

Another point seems to be why they want to encourage resting.  Paraphrasing again, resting is intended to be more centered around food bonuses gained and lost.  I interpret this to mean that rest-spamming for injuries isn't really what they intended for the rest mechanic, so that's one reason the injury system is being tweaked.

 

====

 

Sounds good overall to me, FWIW. Four injuries = autodeath (except on Story Mode), some cause health loss and some don't.  Less of a health penalty for those that do.  And nice balance between injuries matter and injuries matter TOO much.

 

 

If they tune the difficulty such that you need to have superfood bonuses to overcome the enemy and then limit the amount of superfood available, you could have a system that'd really discourage resting.

 

But that's not in the cards so resting or not will revert back to the old honor system or whatever head canon house rules type scenario each individual chooses to roleplay. Which is just fine.

[Katarack21]

If not you can just quicksave before the next encounter and press on as long as no one is at three injuries as that would be idiotic. If you win the encounter keep going, if you lose just re-load and rest.

Yeah, but I mean, other than some sort of save point-based system or an artificial limit on how many times you can save/load, there's really not a lot you can do about save scumming. At some point you have to back off and go "If people want to play the game this way, if that's just how they have fun, they're just gonna do it."

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I like the idea of constitution giving injury "resistance", I,e, percent chance to avoid an injury. May not be necessary though with upcoming changes.

[Mikeymoonshine]

I agree that having four minor injuries kill you is a little odd maybe the first two injuries should always be minor and the third should always be a severe one. 

[theBalthazar]

Good improvement.

 

Don't forget all kind of situations :

 

1) You are a novice in this kind of game = You not think to rest and 25 % is really bad.

 

2) You are maniac gamer = each time you have one injuries, you rest. (more easily now...)

 

3) You are normal gamer. You rest after problematic "situation". Here, if there is 25 %, this kind of players will rest often. If there are less injuries, they can stay with few injuries, and rest later.

 

So, it is for 1 and 3 kind of players that is good to change situation.

 

No injuries is a possibility but like said Josh Sawyer, the player can do anything and it is not desirable. No limit for player is a bad approach.

 

Good choice, obsidian.

Edited December 1, 2017 by theBalthazar

[takamorisan]

I actually like the new system, rewards thoughtful engagements instead of simple mobbing strategy and you commit on the micro management in order to avoid having a down. If you can manage to do encounters without K.O's you are able to push further without spending camping resources.

[zealotstim]

Having injuries be really brutal incentivises me to focus hard to finish fights without getting any injuries, which is enjoyable. Those times when I do get injuries, it doesn't feel like it's too often that I end up rest spamming. Generally when someone gets an injury, several get injured and it would make sense to rest. Then again, my idea of fun is a game that really punishes you so you feel the maximum sense of accomplishment as you progress.