Main character attack and damage

[playerone]

The main character misses constantly and hits for extremely low damage despite proficiency with weapons used and very high perception.

[Wormerine]

How is armor penetration? If your penetration is below enemy's armor rating you will automatically do 30% of the damage (the change is already annouced for the next patch)

[Cdiaz]

Heya playerone,

 

Thanks a lot for the feedback. This is definitely something we are looking at closely as the backer beta continues. Ill add your input to the discussion we currently have

 

You the best,

 

-Caleb

[playerone]

Heya playerone,

 

Thanks a lot for the feedback. This is definitely something we are looking at closely as the backer beta continues. Ill add your input to the discussion we currently have

 

You the best,

 

-Caleb

 

I had to really play with the pause settings to have a chance to set the team up at the start of combat without them running off, observe the effect on their targets and remaining power options, and make the next choice(s). I feel like that sort of staggered mechanic has been the norm until now.

 

There also seems to be a delay in the invidiual combat log versus the general so a character can finish an enemy and you won't know if you're parituclarly looking to see if they did.

 

It seems that after a long battle there isn't much of an experience point haul and even if your character is an awesome closer who saves every team member, just as a random example, you don't get more.

 

I feel like balancing, if that is what this is, makes ordinary fights fairly hard without a really satisfying payoff in experience or stuff at the end.

[Wormerine]

It seems that after a long battle there isn't much of an experience point haul and even if your character is an awesome closer who saves every team member, just as a random example, you don't get more.

 

 

 

I feel like balancing, if that is what this is, makes ordinary fights fairly hard without a really satisfying payoff in experience or stuff at the end.

That's all true and part of the design. If you didn't play Pillars of Eternity1 here is a summary: you gain experience by exploration (discovering new areas), completing quests and completing journal entries - those aren't in the beta yet, but essencially you have a journal with bestiary, which lists every monster encountered. Info about each monsted gets filled in with every enemy of that type defeated. Once you fill the entry you don't gain extra experience from killing this type of creature. Gained experience is spread across all teammates.

 

It might seems like an odd way of doing things, especially compared to jRPGs but that's because Deadfire doesn't encourage combat. It is certanly part of the game but if you want to avoid bloodshed through diplomacy or stealth you won't loose anything. That way game avoids rewarding various roleplaying choices more than others. 

 

Combat is there to be hard if that's what you like. If you feel that a tough fight isn't worth the effort without a better loot or experience boost than the difficulty is there to accommodate you.

[playerone]

The PoE you describe frankly sounds terrible . One of us is remembering it wrong. Did you talk your way through claiming Caed Nua? Piles of coin were not hard to earn through combat in PoE if you wanted them (e.g. bounties). You're right about leveling though. That I forgot. Wondering how may companions were keeping up.  

 

Abilities are almost entirely about how much damage you can inflict or take. If everyone gets the same reward the wonderful/terrible labor of creating a brilliant or lethal character becomes meaningless. There is also little point to multi-class if you are not going to fight because the key difference between classes is the way each hits people (Ciphers excepted). Technically, I think everyone can sneak past trouble.  

 

All of that equals kind of adventure game with tons of nostalgic rpg prowess and class tweaking but relatively little of it actually matters. I'm not sure which of the NPCs demanded equal experience but damn those trouble-makers too. Different kinds of rewards for brainy, diplomatic or violent victory would satisfy the goal of not favoring styles.
 

 

That's all true and part of the design. If you didn't play Pillars of Eternity1 here is a summary: you gain experience by exploration (discovering new areas), completing quests and completing journal entries - those aren't in the beta yet, but essencially you have a journal with bestiary, which lists every monster encountered. Info about each monsted gets filled in with every enemy of that type defeated. Once you fill the entry you don't gain extra experience from killing this type of creature. Gained experience is spread across all teammates.

It might seems like an odd way of doing things, especially compared to jRPGs but that's because Deadfire doesn't encourage combat. It is certanly part of the game but if you want to avoid bloodshed through diplomacy or stealth you won't loose anything. That way game avoids rewarding various roleplaying choices more than others. 

Combat is there to be hard if that's what you like. If you feel that a tough fight isn't worth the effort without a better loot or experience boost than the difficulty is there to accommodate you.

 

[Wormerine]

The PoE you describe frankly sounds terrible . One of us is remembering it wrong. Did you talk your way through claiming Caed Nua? Piles of coin were not hard to earn through combat in PoE if you wanted them (e.g. bounties). You're right about leveling though. That I forgot. Wondering how may companions were keeping up.

 

Abilities are almost entirely about how much damage you can inflict or take. If everyone gets the same reward the wonderful/terrible labor of creating a brilliant or lethal character becomes meaningless. There is also little point to multi-class if you are not going to fight because the key difference between classes is the way each hits people (Ciphers excepted). Technically, I think everyone can sneak past trouble.

 

All of that equals kind of adventure game with tons of nostalgic rpg prowess and class tweaking but relatively little of it actually matters. I'm not sure which of the NPCs demanded equal experience but damn those trouble-makers too. Different kinds of rewards for brainy, diplomatic or violent victory would satisfy the goal of not favoring styles.

I am not saying that you could avoid all combat. PoE is combat heavy. However, you could claim Caed Nua by sneaking past majority of enemies and dealing just with Maerwiad. There are many quests that can be solved by avoiding as much bloodshed as possible. There are also quests that require combat. Bounties you mentioned provide a lot of money (and solid experience from what I remember) for completing them.

 

Rewarding a lot of xp for various playstyles is an option but it tends to bring issues with it. Lets say you are rewarded with xp for killing, and reward for diplomatic option is boosted to make up for xp of guys you didn't kill. What if you kill most of enemies but then go for peacefull solution? What if you go for peacefull solution and than kill everyone for extra xp?

 

Designing such systems encourages odd playstyles by rewarding more xp for them which is not great. Such issue can be noticed in Deus Ex series. The first game worked like PoE1 does, even to a more extreme level. All xp was granted based on exploration and completing objectives. How you did that solely depanded on your roleplaying choices. Deus Ex:HR wanted to reward everything. You get xp for exploration and completing objectives but you also get a bonus for every terminal/computer hacked, for killing enemies, for knocking them out uncontious. To further reward players who decided not to engage enemies there is bonus for not raising an alarm and not being seen. What we end up with is the game, which optimal way of playing is knocking out everyone unconcious to get xp gain for each individual, while not raising an alarm and not being seen with solid bonus on top of that. In addition, even if you gain codes for terminals and computer you hack them anyway, as you get items and xp by hacking a computer but not for unlocking it with a password. 

 

In short, its a pain in the ass to balance xp gain with multiple ways to achieve an objective, and its even tougher to not create a system which will unintentionally reward players for abusing it. A far more managable way of doing it is rewarding xp for the endgoal and leaving it up to the player how they want to get there. Killing enemies already rewards you with loot.

 

Similar issues arise when you would count xp differenly for different team members (see: Overwatch raiting drama). How do you count it? By kill? Damage done? Healing? Disabling? Is a DPS character worth more than a healer, CC or a tank? And sure, you could create a system, which would track each team member seperately, and reward him/her based and her performance in all aspects of the game (contribution to conversations, healing, buffing/debuffing. CC etc.) but good luck with that. It will never work, always someone will be ahead/behind in leveling. 

 

PoE1 apparently had a problem initially where extra team members who stayed in the keep would fall behind in xp gain. In later patches Obsidian added keep adventures on which you can send your idle companions at which grant them XP and provide some unique items. 

Edited March 23, 2018 by Wormerine