Gimme your best and gimme your worst!

[JFutral]

When I look at the title of the thread, who opened it and remember what the intention was then I suddenly feel the urge to discuss per-encounter vs. per-rest and hardcore vs. casual elsewhere.

 

Deja vu all over again!

 

Joe

[DexGames]

You see per rest like a precious ressource to save (And often finally don't use totally... !....). I see that like a normal ressource which will be boring when it is empty (rest or return in town).

 

I value Ressource Management over No Ressource Management.

[Grotesque]

Wait... what?

 

Spells are per encounter now? LOL!

 

It feels like outo health regen from those famous retarded shooters everyone loves.

[theBalthazar]

Spells are per encounter now? LOL!

 

It feels like outo health regen from those famous retarded shooters everyone loves.

 

 

Without link. Health regeneration is definitely lost. (Like Perfect Dark/Goldeneye in hardest mode)

 

Here "per rest spells" can be restored.

 

Virtually, in POE1, you can already have a per encounter "effect", if you rest after each battle. It is boring, but possible.

 

So... Sorry but... You have already easy mode in POE1... : p

Edited February 17, 2018 by theBalthazar

[lunattic]

I'd like to add another suggestion for fixing the very limited pool of points the different classes have available, also touching on the limited cutomisation options. Simply double or so the amount of useable points each combat. Next to having more than 2 abilities to use before running out, this would also make having multiple point spending abilities a more viable strategy for building your character. 

[acbatchelor]

When I look at the title of the thread, who opened it and remember what the intention was then I suddenly feel the urge to discuss per-encounter vs. per-rest and hardcore vs. casual elsewhere.

 

I'm sorry I poked the beehive.    I was honestly giving my best and worst.

[DozingDragon]

The good:

 

Stealth has drastically improved, and I love the synergy with the explosives skill. Stealthing, and then luring enemies away from groups or to traps with explosives feels great.

 

The improvements to the game’s visuals are very nice, but terribly optimized at the moment. I am running the game at 1440p with a gtx 1080ti and an i7-7700k, and I regularly see FPS drops into the 20’s, sometimes even on the overworld map screen. I suspect the various lighting and weather effects are to blame, but I sincerely hope these issues are under control at the time of release.

 

Subclasses and multiclassing are very good, but there are still some particular issues that need some tuning before release (some subclasses are too weak, stacking rules could be clearer).

 

The bad:

 

Casting times can still be a little too long for some spells when considering the duration of their effect or their damage. I just ran a party of five wizards, with only one character specialized as a frontline wizard, through the exterior of Poko Kahara on Classic, and I was able to get through every fight without any knockouts. The fights were much longer than my other playthroughs, but rationing empowered abilities while using CC abilities and defensive buffs made the fights manageable. So, something probably needs to be tweaked one way or another with casters. Also, I am fairly certain my party would be have eaten alive on Path of the Damned, at least with the current state of the game.

 

Plenty of others have commented about penetration, but I understand that some more changes are coming soon, so I suppose we will wait and see. However, I have to say I appreciated the DR system in PoE, and I think something like penetration might have been better as a situational effect, but I suppose that ship has sailed.

 

And finally, weapon proficiency modals need another pass. They are either too situational, or the penalties are too high to make them worthwhile.

[DexGames]

Wait... what?

 

Spells are per encounter now? LOL!

 

It feels like outo health regen from those famous retarded shooters everyone loves.

 

Yep ! Infinite Spells now ! Spam Fest feels great.

No, just kidding. 

[Wormerine]

When I look at the title of the thread, who opened it and remember what the intention was then I suddenly feel the urge to discuss per-encounter vs. per-rest and hardcore vs. casual elsewhere.

I. Am. Trying. So. Hard. To. Resist.

 

So. Many. False. Statements. Begging. To. Be. Corrected.

[bleedthefreak]

I love almost everything about this beta, from the visuals and the writing to the ship combat (now I understand it a little better) and the new skill/tree system.

 

However, I have two comments I want to have stated at some point, so this thread is as good a place as any.

 

1 - I know Josh talked about Weapon Proficiency in a tweet and his comment was something about how they should be situational. I actually realized reading his comment I disagree - I feel like they should be a boon, and everyone weapon proficiency should be awesome and wanted, so when you can finally pick one it's a Big Deal. If you have a proficiency with a weapon, you should WANT to have that ability active all the time - don't even make it a toggle, make it a passive.

 

Proficient with Daggers? Enjoy +1 Penetration with all of them. Something like that. It should be awesome to have a proficiency with a weapon, not an ability I have to remember to use every so often.

 

Also - let's have different speeds at which various classes gain proficiency. Especially for the classes that don't directly benefit from it. Maybe Fighters should get a LOT because many of their abilities can take advantage of it, while Wizards should get only a few?

 

2 - I like the way combat feels and I'm pleased there will be a slider to allow slower combat, which might be all I really need, but having put some time into the Pathfinder Kingmaker beta I have to admit there is something charming about the measured pace of combat there I prefer. Part of the issue with the backer beta might be those damned Languafish or whatever they are called attack like 3 times for every one time my characters attack, or so it seems, and so sometimes as soon as combat is joined I have a guy paralyzed by a dart and my rogue is nearly dead. No matter what they do, the game is going to be tough to follow when enemies move and attack so quickly, after all. I wish the game's characters had more weight and felt more deliberate, but it's important the enemies feel that way as well.

Edited February 20, 2018 by bleedthefreak

[Silvaren]

One more thing:

 

Old health mechanic was better. In PoE1 droping health while maintaining endurance at higher level required more tactics and it was a punishment itself. Now there is rarely need to rest (after changes in wound system in latest build). I can beat group after group in countless fights. Old health/endurance system worked better as additional layer of strategy and simply as a challenge.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

One more thing:

 

Old health mechanic was better. In PoE1 droping health while maintaining endurance at higher level required more tactics and it was a punishment itself. Now there is rarely need to rest (after changes in wound system in latest build). I can beat group after group in countless fights. Old health/endurance system worked better as additional layer of strategy and simply as a challenge.

On Hard I only rested if there were crippling injuries or if out of spells. The number of times I rested because of low health I can count on one hand(3) and managed to get to an inn around yellow most of the time. Deadfire seems to continue this, only that 3+ injuries will kill you instead of low health and empower instead of per rest abilities.

[JFutral]

Huh. The only times I DIDN"T rest because of health was when I took Laying on of hands or that other skill that healed health. I NEVER understood why a priest couldn't heal health otherwise, only endurance.

 

Joe

[Boeroer]

So that healing isn't too powerful. Like it is in Deadfire atm. Pack enough healing and you can't go down.

[bonarbill]

.

Edited February 20, 2018 by bonarbill

[IndiraLightfoot]

To the point, I like it!

[Gitmfap]

Good: visuals, sounds, writing, most of the ui.

 

Bad: start screen - kind of...static

 

Combat: I’m having fun with it, empower is a great mechanic, I actually feel I’m crawling through a dungeon, not just stopping halfway to rest. HOWEVER: it’s hard to know what I’m actually doing sometimes with the empower. The stances...are ok I guess. They are very sitatuational, the point if irrelevancy. Feels like a tacked on mechanic that just adds something else to forget. (Not counting warrior stances, they are great)

 

Cipher is terrible to play:(

 

Ship combat...seems meh. I don’t understand where the tactics really are in the fight.

 

Leveling up and choosing a weapon feels silly. It’s another one of those “why am I doing this, it doesn’t really affect anything”

 

I do like the new direction of combat, it just needs some more attention. I find my wizards are really useful, but I play on veteran minnimum, so fights go a bit longer. Not sure on potd, I could see running out of spells.

[drchocapic]

My main gripe about the game is still the lack of actual meaningful choices in levelling and combat.

 

Classes have so few actual viable choices that you pretty much always go for the same things and, even when playing PotD, I don't really feel like I'm actually reacting to what's happening during the fight but rather just applying the same winning formula every time, no matter what kind of opposition I'm currently facing.

 

It's not bereft of fun but it really feels like combat is going to get really old, really fast.

[Soulmojo]

Wow it is really hard to point out specific things, as my experiences and feelings about those are quite complex...

 

Penetration

• It is too complex of an issue, because in a way the current system is acceptable, meaning if you are heavy on armor you should be rewarded, and if you gear towards meeting the enemy armor then you are rewarded with full damage. Right now the system are too harsh on players, you cannot estimate what armor the enemy has, and making the wrong guess on higher difficulty could very well be the end of your party.

 

• If you fail too meet enemy armor by one point then you lose 25% by two point 50% by three 70%. The player is forced to make guess into the unknown. The better way to do this is to make penetration less of an impact on combat. 10% per point difference relaxes the game that if you do absolutely nothing to increase penetration or armor and reduce enemy armor you will not be able to hit high armor enemies and vica versa, but does not punish you the way it does now.

 

• Penetration has a significant impact on weapons as high penetration weapons do much less damage. And if you are really doing your job, using consumables, spells, and abilities these weapons become suboptimal real fast real soon. I would never use a warhammer, or a mace or an estoc for example because I sacrifice too much damage. I really think it was a bad design choice to make similar weapons do different damage. 

 

• I have a very bad experience with armor in conjunction with penetration. Each player armor has a huge weakness, which in essence makes heavy armor useless, because the enemy usually finds a way somehow to exploit your armors weakness. In return you give up a lot of combat speed. The armor weakness was fine in PoE1 because your armor rating was divided from the damage received and you could calculate the risk you took. But here where 1-2 point difference means you get 50 vs 15 incoming damage it simply does not working. What I do now is I equip medium armor - usually breastplate - and compensate this with spells or abilities if I can. using heavier armor really does not make a difference on my characters. You really should remove weakness from armor or as I said make penetration impact much less. All the same time you struggle to find a way to do full damage.

 

• Lastly and this is much of the problem as the things I wrote above. currently if the enemy penetrates your armor by two times they get 30% damage bonus. Now I explained that the enemy exploits your armors weakness constantly, Either by sheer numbers or by employing lots of different damage types or both. So it is almost a given that you will get spike damage incoming. This is even worse when the enemy crits you and when you crit you get a bonus to penetration therefore it is almost certain that the enemy not only gets bonus crit damage, but also gets the bonus 30% from penetration. I really think this feature should and must be remowed from the game because it pushes toward too big damages. On a crit doing closer to full damage + crit damage bonus should be more than adequate.  On a normal hit with high penetration full damage is a good reward.

This current system in general benefits the NPC enemy in spiking the player, than it benefits the player.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Soulmojo

[Sedrefilos]

I haven't played the beta so my opinion could just be crap, but I follow the development closely and I also watch let's plays. And after a post by Sawyer on tumblr regarding penetration, I have to say: I really hate the mechanic!

 

Youhave that much pen, and if that doesent' go over that much armor it doesen't do jack and if you have low and can't buff it over that much you're wasting your time and all that. Seriously... this sounds bad design imo. I don't want to waste time on counting how much pen I need at a time! I want to know that if I have low pen I'll do less damage, if I have high pen I'll di more damage. If I have low pen and buff it, I'll do as much damage more as I buff it and so on. Plain and simple.

 

Usually I learn how a mechanic works and I keep it in mind and when I fight I plan around that and leave the computer do the calculations. Now there are dead zones? Nah-ah. Don't like at all, sorry.

And usually when there's a mechanic that doesen;t work that well you just ignore ity and life goes on. Like Pillars 1 DR system. I thought it was cool, others said it didn;t work well but I didn;t care. I did what I did and the game progressed nicely. This time around I believe pen will get in the way and I fear I won't be able to enjoy combat :/

[MaxQuest]

Youhave that much pen, and if that doesent' go over that much armor it doesen't do jack and if you have low and can't buff it over that much you're wasting your time and all that. Seriously... this sounds bad design imo. I don't want to waste time on counting how much pen I need at a time!

Not going to contradict you, but just want to mention that weapons' base damage was stealthily changed (for some reason it wasn't added to changelog) (and for example I noticed these changes just a few days ago, despite the fact that beta3 came 19 days ago).

 

Looking at base damage values (here's the list), it appears to me that approach to penetration system has changed. For example the relative damage difference between 5-PEN and 9-PEN was quite narrowed. And estocs deal only 25% less damage than great swords now (down from 39%). Basically if you don't want to give a damn about penetration, you can travel with an estoc and a pollaxe in offset; and in the worst case you will deal 25% less damage, than if you learned a priori enemy AR values and selected the best weapon using that knowledge; and in the best case you lose close to nothing. But yes, if you want to use 5-PEN weapons, you will have to learn that stuff.

 

Also OBS will likely still re-iterate the penetration system as mentioned here. And there were also some plans to increase the penetration of low-pen and medium-pen weapons by 1 tier, as mentioned here. Although the last link makes me wonder about the tankiness of our frontline.

Edited February 21, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Soulmojo]

 

Youhave that much pen, and if that doesent' go over that much armor it doesen't do jack and if you have low and can't buff it over that much you're wasting your time and all that. Seriously... this sounds bad design imo. I don't want to waste time on counting how much pen I need at a time!

Not going to contradict you, but just want to mention that weapons' base damage was stealthily changed (for some reason it wasn't added to changelog) (and for example I noticed these changes just a few days ago, despite the fact that beta3 came 19 days ago).

 

Looking at base damage values (here's the list), it appears to me that approach to penetration system has changed. For example the relative damage difference between 5-PEN and 9-PEN was quite narrowed. And estocs deal only 25% less damage than great swords now (down from 39%). Basically if you don't want to give a damn about penetration, you can travel with an estoc and a pollaxe in offset; and in the worst case you will deal 25% less damage, than if you learned a priori enemy AR values and selected the best weapon using that knowledge; and in the best case you lose close to nothing.

 

Also OBS will likely still re-iterate the penetration system as mentioned here. And there were also some plans to increase the penetration of low-pen and medium-pen weapons by 1 tier, as mentioned here. Although the last link makes me wonder about the tankiness of our frontline.

 

 

....Or use a greatsword or a longsword and enjoy the benefits of high damage and full damage.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Soulmojo

[MaxQuest]

....Or use a greatsword or a longsword and enjoy the benefits of high damage and full damage.

Estoc deals 25% less base damage than Great Sword, but has 4 more penetration.

At the same time having a 4 PEN deficit can result in dealing x4 less damage due to underpenetration.

 

So if a player doesn't want to think about penetration / or looking for best performing weapon (math wise); he will be safer with high-PEN weapons in current beta.

But yes, he can do whatever he wants)

[Soulmojo]

So I looked at what Josh said in this Frog Helms Fan Club Page:

 

melnorme asked:

General observation: In PoE2, Penetration take the role that Damage had in PoE1 for penetrating armor. Although Pen differs from Dam in that it doesn't directly kill enemies, it's likely that players will see it just as much of a must-have. If you had a buff that simply increased your damage output across the board for a duration of time, you would always cast it. The same goes for Pen. I think you should be VERY careful with handing out Pen buffs because they could become rote no-brainers.

I think that is the instinct that some players will have, but there are circumstances where adding Pen doesn’t get you anything – and the cost for gaining Pen in those circumstances is wasteful.

Any time your Pen is significantly (e.g. 5 or 6 points) under the target AR, adding Pen in any number that doesn’t break past -3 isn’t actually doing anything.  You’re still so far under the AR that your damage is bottoming out.  Similarly, if you’re already matching the target’s AR with your Pen, stacking pen in any amount that doesn’t reach double the target’s AR is a waste.

If a target has 10 AR, you will do the same damage with 19 Pen as you would with 10 Pen.  If you have 5 Pen and the target has 10 AR, stacking 2 points of Pen gets you to 7 Pen, which is still at the lowest damage rating (currently -75%).  It would be more advantageous in those circumstances to boost your base damage, since adding 10% damage will do more to the opponent than moving from a -5 margin to -3.

Of course, if you’re Overpenetrating, there’s absolutely no point to stacking Pen unless you anticipate a sudden spike in the enemy’s AR.

Why is it a problem if I stacked enough penetration and It is doing nothing to me? Good for me no? Job well done! I mean yes I have more than I need, but since I don't know what I will face next it very well could be a life saver next time no? That on its own is the reward right?  Plus I can move on to get stronger on other stats right? Right? Am I missing something here? And let me decide if I want to waste my stats thank you very much!

 

Secondly. If my penetration is soo much below the enemy armor, then instead buffing penetration on everything why on earth don't make a functioning system where this is not a problem?

Why do they so so so insistent on the 3 point difference like it is the scripture? Why not make a system where if you 5-6 point below enemy armor translates to 50%-60% reduction? THEN if you ad 1 damn point then it is a 10% increase of damage? If you add two then it is 20%? The same way the made this 1-3 point difference they can just as easily make another with a 10pt system.

It's like they don't see the forest because of a tree or something....

Edited February 21, 2018 by Soulmojo

[Soulmojo]

 

....Or use a greatsword or a longsword and enjoy the benefits of high damage and full damage.

Estoc deals 25% less base damage than Great Sword, but has 4 more penetration.

At the same time having a 4 PEN deficit can result in dealing x4 less damage due to underpenetration.

 

So if a player doesn't want to think about penetration / or looking for best performing weapon (math wise); he will be safer with high-PEN weapons in current beta.

But yes, he can do whatever he wants)

 

 

Or, I just keep using a greatsword and focus on accuracy to crit more and more. Plus cast an armor reduction debuff and use penetration consumable buff while I am at it.

Or activate greatsword I win modal for +50% damage. 

Edited February 21, 2018 by Soulmojo