Graze back in

[Sedrefilos]

Game mechanics designing isn't art. It's how a game is better enjoyed by playing it. You might have a vision of how your game would play but in practice it doesen't work exactly as you had it in mind. You might need to adjust and see what's going on from there. Within the vision of course. If anyone has ever designed a game of any sorts, you would know. Now, if they changed it to "no miss whatsoever" or "click to attack" this would have been a big change and a shift to the vision.

 

The previous change, though, the one with might and resolve, was a change to the vision imo.

[JerekKruger]

"Deadfire cancelled, Josh Sawyer's Cats and Bike Simulator 2018 greenlit"

 

Corrected that for you.

[Sedrefilos]

 

"Deadfire cancelled, Josh Sawyer's Cats in medieval outfits and Bike Simulator 2018 greenlit"

 

Corrected that for you.

 

Correctet for both of you

[JerekKruger]

It should probably actually be:

 

"Deadfire cancelled, Josh Sawyer's Cats in Medieval Outfits, Obscure Early Christian Saints, and Bike Simulator 2018 greenlit"

[daven]

See, all of you have to stick yer noses in his business and try make corrections to it!

 

This is exactly how Nazi Germany started! A bunch of layabouts with nothing better to do!!!

[Wormerine]

It should probably actually be:

 

"Deadfire cancelled, Josh Sawyer's Cats in Medieval Outfits, Obscure Early Christian Saints, and Bike Simulator 2018 greenlit"

Dont forget about cheese.

[Wormerine]

Game mechanics designing isn't art. It's how a game is better enjoyed by playing it. You might have a vision of how your game would play but in practice it doesen't work exactly as you had it in mind. You might need to adjust and see what's going on from there. Within the vision of course. If anyone has ever designed a game of any sorts, you would know. Now, if they changed it to "no miss whatsoever" or "click to attack" this would have been a big change and a shift to the vision.

 

The previous change, though, the one with might and resolve, was a change to the vision imo.

Same can be said about structuring story, editing, framing, choosing right equipment etc. All of the art forms have a very practical and technical foundation. Still, glad to see grazed back in. Dire Blessing was a must cast.

[Katarack21]

It should probably actually be:

 

"Deadfire cancelled, Josh Sawyer's Cats in Medieval Outfits, Obscure Early Christian Saints, and Bike Simulator 2018 greenlit"

It's a classless system.

[draego]

Info on grazes from Josh

 

 

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Is grazing with an affliction going to downgrade it a "rank" or will it stay full force but half duration?

 

Currently we're going with the half duration implementation for a couple of reasons 1) it's easy to implement, which is important when everyone is crunching 2) it's more consistent for players 3) our high-end afflictions are generally less gnarly than they were in Pillars 1, so there's less concern over a half-duration affliction meaning certain death as everyone dogpiles the target with additional afflictions.

 

We can do the tier downgrading, but I'd like to see how this feels for people first.

Edited December 5, 2017 by draego

[Lamppost in Winter]

Ah, you beat me to it. SomethingAwful has deigned to allow me access to the Joshposts again.

Interesting that high level afflictions being "less gnarly" was a conscious design choice, but that feedback's been submitted by the team already.

[Answermancer]

Game mechanics designing isn't art. It's how a game is better enjoyed by playing it. You might have a vision of how your game would play but in practice it doesen't work exactly as you had it in mind. You might need to adjust and see what's going on from there. Within the vision of course. If anyone has ever designed a game of any sorts, you would know. Now, if they changed it to "no miss whatsoever" or "click to attack" this would have been a big change and a shift to the vision.

 

The previous change, though, the one with might and resolve, was a change to the vision imo.

 

^this

 

Game design is extremely iterative (I know from experience), and really, good design in general is extremely iterative. Design is different than art, too, even if a game can end up being art in the end.

 

Up til now the only feedback they've had on what's currently in the new game has been internal, the whole benefit of a Real Beta like this is getting lots of outside feedback and trying a bunch of different stuff with a quick feedback cycle. This is exactly what they should be doing IMO, even if a month from now they decide "we changed out minds, grazes suck, now everyone just has an 80% miss chance, **** you" that would still be the Beta working as intended.

 

Changing your mind based on feedback and data is a good thing (obviously up to a point, at some point you have to ship), and I think a lot of people treat "sticking to your guns" as a virtue when IMO it's anything but (in the presence of feedback and data, I'm not talking about arbitrarily changing your mind all the time).

[daven]

You have an interesting point.

Edited December 6, 2017 by daven

[Sedrefilos]

Yeah, they decided to go open beta to get feedback on the mechanics. They were clear. They didn't want feedback on story or art direction or writing style etc. Just mechanics. And that's good imo, because, as I said, mechanics is not art - it's functionality and fun. Well, they got it, for better or for worse. If they'd ignore it why make an open beta in the first place?

Edited December 6, 2017 by Sedrefilos

[EzekielMoerdyk]

I know this is jut making feedback collection by the devs more difficult... but I liked having "grazing as choice" rather than "grazing as guaranteed". I was initially bothered by the lack of it, but I think that was just bias since I was used to the old system. I've since gotten semi-used to not having it all the time, even though the current beta isn't really balanced for the lack of grazing (similar to the PEN system) which makes it difficult to evaluate.

 

Grazing was a nice addition to the per-rest system of PoE 1, since resources were (supposedly) more limited and therefore each "swing" of an ability mattered. With per-encounter abilities, it is ok to have no effect rather than reduced effect (i.e. missing doesn't to suck). On the other hand, grazing reduced most weapon users to pseudo average DoT dealers. 

 

In the current beta, despite the numbers not being balanced at all (i.e. accuracy values, spell cast times, durations etc.), I liked the option to have grazing as a tactical decision. I.e., either as an item (gloves), talent (fighter) or buff (spell/empower). Wasn't this part of the entire goal of having to be able to empower abilities? In that, if you absolutely needed an ability to hit, you could empower it? This seemed to be a decision which the player could make with regards to CC - empower or buff your guy before casting an NB spell in order to increase your odds of hitting during critical moments of important fights.

 

Can't the ability to graze with weapons be tied to weapon proficiency? So that weapon users gain the ability when they take the proficiency, which generally guarantee the ability to graze for most characters with a weapon. On the other hand, for CC, after balancing it would be nice if grazing is a choice - either through empower or buffing or items. It could even be separated (i.e. - an item could grant grazing to all effects which inflict stun). 

 

I guess the old system worked fine, but the "option" which was given to the player - that of upgrading x% of misses/grazes/hits to grazes/hits/crits just felt so unnoticeable and meh to me.

[Wormerine]

I know this is jut making feedback collection by the devs more difficult... but I liked having "grazing as choice" rather than "grazing as guaranteed". I was initially bothered by the lack of it, but I think that was just bias since I was used to the old system. I've since gotten semi-used to not having it all the time, even though the current beta isn't really balanced for the lack of grazing (similar to the PEN system) which makes it difficult to evaluate.

 

Grazing was a nice addition to the per-rest system of PoE 1, since resources were (supposedly) more limited and therefore each "swing" of an ability mattered. With per-encounter abilities, it is ok to have no effect rather than reduced effect (i.e. missing doesn't to suck). On the other hand, grazing reduced most weapon users to pseudo average DoT dealers. 

 

In the current beta, despite the numbers not being balanced at all (i.e. accuracy values, spell cast times, durations etc.), I liked the option to have grazing as a tactical decision. I.e., either as an item (gloves), talent (fighter) or buff (spell/empower). Wasn't this part of the entire goal of having to be able to empower abilities? In that, if you absolutely needed an ability to hit, you could empower it? This seemed to be a decision which the player could make with regards to CC - empower or buff your guy before casting an NB spell in order to increase your odds of hitting during critical moments of important fights.

 

Can't the ability to graze with weapons be tied to weapon proficiency? So that weapon users gain the ability when they take the proficiency, which generally guarantee the ability to graze for most characters with a weapon. On the other hand, for CC, after balancing it would be nice if grazing is a choice - either through empower or buffing or items. It could even be separated (i.e. - an item could grant grazing to all effects which inflict stun). 

 

I guess the old system worked fine, but the "option" which was given to the player - that of upgrading x% of misses/grazes/hits to grazes/hits/crits just felt so unnoticeable and meh to me.

The problem with “optional graze” was that it really wasn’t an option. Beta ranges from very tricky to very easy and all that changes it is casting Dire Blessing. Lack of grazes and low penetration made spellcasting frustrating as you would spend lengthy time preparing the spell only to not see anything happen. I don’t feel grazing needs to be in game, but as of now, the system doesn’t work well without grazes.

[-dib-]

Why did they remove grazes in the first place?

 

Wasn't it because of feedback? now they are changing it back because of feedback? Maybe Obsidian should just stick with their vision and get on with it. Instead of being like a pendulum with every mechanic in the game.

 

I seriously doubt grazing is a core component of their vision. I don't see a problem with trying something out and then changing or killing it if it doesn't work out. I also doubt the change happened solely based on player feedback.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

Why did they remove grazes in the first place?

 

Wasn't it because of feedback? now they are changing it back because of feedback? Maybe Obsidian should just stick with their vision and get on with it. Instead of being like a pendulum with every mechanic in the game.

 

I seriously doubt grazing is a core component of their vision. I don't see a problem with trying something out and then changing or killing it if it doesn't work out. I also doubt the change happened solely based on player feedback.

 

 

 

Sawyer explained the "why" over on somethingawful. Basically, the problem was two things:

 

1) Player feedback that grazes just ran into AR and never made it past AR thresholds, so clogged the combat log with pointless spam

 

2) observations that grazes made hard CC really powerful because it meant you could pretty much always hit with a debilitating CC.

 

 

So they got rid of Grazes. Thing is, though, they'd already solved both those problems via other changes:

 

1) We have Penetration/DR now so grazes will still do damage, and

 

2) Hard CC effects are generally less powerful now due to the revamping of the Affliction system.

[Answermancer]

So they got rid of Grazes. Thing is, though, they'd already solved both those problems via other changes:

 

1) We have Penetration/DR now so grazes will still do damage, and

 

2) Hard CC effects are generally less powerful now due to the revamping of the Affliction system.

Yup, exactly right. I think the point about the Pen system is very important, previously a graze with a light weapon would do basically no damage, with the new system, as long as you penetrate you'll still do half damage, which should feel okay.

 

All that said, personally I think the real problem in the current version of the BB is with abilities. I wouldn't mind conditional or removed grazes for auto-attacks, but I strongly feel that abilities need either grazes or built-in miss mitigation (like spells in D&D tend to have, with half damage or lowered effects, etc.).

 

This is especially true of spells, due to cast time, but IMO any ability that uses up your resources is problematic when it fails multiple times in a row. I mentioned this in another thread but on my first BB character I took the upgraded rogue Blind ability, and was very excited to see it in action. I used it in every fight in the beta and never once had it actually proc the effect (it might have done the damage once or twice, but never the actual Blind/bonus effect). That just feels terrible when you've invested 2 talents and then 2-3 power points for each use.

[daven]

I think it's time to bring back THAC0

[Clean&Clear]

I don't like grazes on everything, I think there are enough hits even without them atm, and the average miss ratio on autoattacks for an average character is not too bad, it is nowhere near what it was in old IE games on low levels, which IIRC was the argument for introducing grazes in PoE1 in the first place. I think hitting all the time for not that significant damage doesn't feel rewarding, while hitting every third attack while doing considerable damage does.

[draego]

Josh grazes stuff good

[draego]

More info from Josh

 

Yeah, we adjusted it slightly.

 

25-49 = Graze

50-99 = Hit

100+ Crit

 

This is mostly because it's a little easier to remember and a little bit because I got a suggestion bug that it should be possible to Crit with equal accuracy and defense. This is now technically true.

Edited December 12, 2017 by draego