Beta Speed Mod

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Calculations and theorycrafting aside:

I think everybody who plays this mod sees that the situation for casters is better than before while they are still not as powerful as melee characters (at least the multiclass ones). So this should be a step into the right direction.

Of course the beta only covers lvls 6-9, so the situation may change from lvl 9 on - but I doubt it.

So far melee/casters can do better than buff, with Cipher becoming a whole lot more useful and (Skald) Chanters changing the least. Unfortunatly, the Berserker/Devoted Brute is better than either Berserker/Evoker Warlock or Devoted/Evoker Battlemage thanks to Carnage+Cleaving Stance and Frenzy+Tactical Barrage. A solution to this is reducing cast times of some single target spells, in particular ones with a short range like ray of fire, and maybe upping the Wizard and Cipher health to 40 +10/level like the other casters.

[theBalthazar]

Well I’m speechless. 

 

 

MaxQuest Mod. You have try his mod ?^^ Purpose of this topic...

 

I have already specified three/four posts highter :

 

PS : All my calculations are on MaxQuest proposition. 3s or recovery is far more logical. And give a necessity to go down a little more the spells (casting time).

 

 

Anyway if you pick up my calculations, it is not possible to come at nerf +53 % between POE1 and 2, without 3s base speed. Based on MaxQuest proposition.

 

So Yes with 4s it is more "balanced" (naively). But even with 4s, people complain about casting speed of casters.

 

Why ? Because in the course of the fight seems irrationnal. OR there is a part of bias for old players of Pillars 1. (Internal reference of shorter timing)

 

...And that was the objective of my first post...^^ Compared pillars 1 and pillars 2 beta.

 

To conclude, 

 

think everybody who plays this mod sees that the situation for casters is better than before while they are still not as powerful as melee characters

 

 

Yes. And for me. The perfect position and example of Fire ball is balanced around :

 

My taste : In POE1, I have never used slow spells, because it was awful to use. It was 5.63 s Effect+completion (I don't talk of recovery)

 

So for deadfire :

5s max (And in my list, AoE damage are the longest spells...)

1s (if we stay on a total of 6s)

 

And with that, correct damages (Like MaxQuest's proposition like 43-55). But more than 5s is bad idea for me. It is my taste, my feel and my calculations.

 

Balthazar

Edited February 18, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Nail]

Glad to hear it)

 

Regarding evoker: it looks like he has to heavily rely of Fan of Flames, Rolling Flames and narrow passages in the early game.

Which single-class character had easy-time where evoker couldn't advance?

I'm used to check buidls this way:

1) PotD

2) Buy equip

3) Dismiss all team

4) This should be level 6 solo character.

5) Go to Skulking-Terror, try to kill it.

 

Some pass this test, some can't - pretty simple challange.

With Battlemage I could bring him down to 30% of his life, but it's seems imposible to burst so much damage with 3 spells.

Even I've picked Large Shield + Full Plate and maximised con, I'm still dying very fast.

May be not the best build, but I found it fire.

 

For instance, this encounter is very easy with Shepherd,

also take a look at crit numbers: 116 and 74 which tooltip is false?

Edited February 19, 2018 by Nail

[Archaven]

wow i'm amazed there's so many positive feedback on the mods. i think obsidian would greatly benefits hiring someone like boeroer and maxquest for their games. a shout out for great job!. i be sure to download this mod when the game releases and compared with the original design by obsidian.

[theBalthazar]

benefits hiring someone like boeroer and maxquest for their games.

 

 

Snif : p

[Lamppost in Winter]

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

On paper at least all the suggestions in this mod look great.  As usual with Maxquest posts I'm having a hard time finding anything to disagree with!

 

One minor point: statistically, giving powers an accuracy boost but a shorter duration is six of one/half a dozen of the other, but there is an increase in reliability etc. Maybe also try modding in a critical bonus to damage and duration of 50% instead of 25%?

[MaxQuest]

i be sure to download this mod when the game releases and compared with the original design by obsidian.

The game will quite change till it gets released, plus there will be a ton of extra info available for us to take into account, so the mod will likely become obsolete, unless re-iterated  

I'd recommend checking it in the current beta) 

 

I'm used to check buidls this way:

1) PotD

2) Buy equip

3) Dismiss all team

4) This should be level 6 solo character.

5) Go to Skulking-Terror, try to kill it.

Gee, you selected the perfect enemy for an evoker. A monk/mage-slayer with high defenses)

If you multi-class, you have 2 rank 1 spells and 1 rank 2 spells. Even if he doesn't interrupt or stunning blow you, and even if you hit with the spells, the combined spell damage is not enough to deal with his 257 hp. And... it would be pretty OP it if would)

 

Have tried also single-class evoker. This way you get 1 extra spell of rank 2, and 1 of rank 3. Technically an empowered fireball could deal up to 150 dmg on crit, and finish him of via rays of fire. But grazes, grazes and stunning blow. No success so far.

 

P.S. I've tried Fine Brigandine for survivability, as it helps better than Plate, since terror wields clubs. Also Spirit Shield helps a ton... but it takes the precious spell usage; and there is little left that you can use to bait his interrupts.

P.P.S. It's hard to get enough armor on lvl 6 vs terror's 9 penetration; I'm thinking what will be when weapons will get +2 PEN more...

P.P.P.S. Had a good laugh looking at your Shepherd kitting with animal companion)

 

And one more thing: it's an interesting experiment, and I have tried pure-evoker and also a few multi-classed variants; but one single high-hp/def enemy is not really good target for low-level evoker benchmarking, as his strength is more related to dealing with groups of low-average hp'ed monsters (and either from stealth; or assisted by his party).

 

On paper at least all the suggestions in this mod look great.  As usual with Maxquest posts I'm having a hard time finding anything to disagree with!

 

One minor point: statistically, giving powers an accuracy boost but a shorter duration is six of one/half a dozen of the other, but there is an increase in reliability etc. Maybe also try modding in a critical bonus to damage and duration of 50% instead of 25%?

Nice. I will think about it. Although can already say that I crit way less often than the enemies on PotD. So it will actually buff them more than the player)

Btw it's important to remind that base acc is now lower than in PoE1. My lvl 6 single-class evoker has +15 acc from level, while it would be 20+3*5 in PoE1. And MinimumRollToGraze is now 25, compared to 16.

 

P.S. if you want to try +0.5 crit damage/duration sooner, you can edit the following in bb_global.gamedatabundle:

CritDamageMult: 1.25 -> 1.50

CritEffectDurationMult: 1.25 -> 1.50

Edited February 18, 2018 by MaxQuest

[theBalthazar]

Hum... Interresting post of Mr Sawyer.

 

But if trash mobs and titan can't be taken for benchmark. Spells seem to be intended to what ?^^ boss battle ? (With empower ? It is indeed extremely powerful, no doubt)

 

But, in this case, subsidiary question : often (not always) a boss is a unique monster. What is the point to send a fireball whose goal is to attack a group.

 

In this way of thinking, Fireball of POE1 have a better fits his own function (Less damages/fast attack for a group of trash mobs). Or we have to find the in-between.

Edited February 18, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Nice. I will think about it. Although can already say that I crit way less often than the enemies on PotD. So it will actually buff them more than the player)

Btw it's important to remind that base acc is now lower than in PoE1. My lvl 6 single-class evoker has +15 acc from level, while it would be 20+3*5 in PoE1. And MinimumRollToGraze is now 25, compared to 16.

 

P.S. if you want to try +0.5 crit damage/duration sooner, you can edit the following in bb_global.gamedatabundle:

CritDamageMult: 1.25 -> 1.50

CritEffectDurationMult: 1.25 -> 1.50

 

 

 

Hah, fair point! I mostly play the beta on Veteran -- it feels like the valid "testing" difficulty, at least for me. I don't really have time to test PoE right now (too much else on my plate this week) but I suspect that on non-PotD difficulties at least, a crit boost plus an accuracy boost would significantly help both with spell durations and with "crit build" setups (which tend to be good choices for hybrids like ciphers since crits benefit spells and damage both).

Edited February 18, 2018 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[MaxQuest]

But if trash mobs and titan can't be taken for benchmark. Spells seem to be intended to what ?^^ boss battle ? (With empower ? It is indeed extremely powerful, no doubt)

Am thinking that benchmarking welcomes a complex approach. Check a spell vs dummy; in combat vs grubs; vs titan; vs terror; vs one-two groups of lagufaeth.

Compare it to the other spells of the same rank, as they compete for a spellusage.

Try it with empower and without.

And ofc take into account action economy. A spell might have a very good efficiency ratio. But if deals low-damage despite of being super-super-fast, you might end with no spells to cast.

 

But, in this case, subsidiary question : often (not always) a boss is a unique monster. What is the point to send a fireball whose goal is to attack a group.

Usually none. But if you are very limited on the amount of spells you can cast (think of low-level wizard); he might simply have no slow and powerful single-target nukes/dots yet. So he might take Fireball because of it's high base damage.

 

In this way of thinking, Fireball of POE1 have a better fits his own function (Less damages/fast attack for a group of trash mobs). Or we have to find the in-between.

Fireball in PoE1 and Fireball in Deadfire are different things and serve different purpose.

In PoE1 you could cast 4 fireballs and deal enough aoe damage that would surpass the max hp of enemies in the group. If it was the same in Deadfire, you would cast 2 fireballs and be thinking: now what? they are still alive.

 

Another thing to take into account is that now we have interrupt mechanics. And the whole point of slowing down the casting durations, was partially related to make interrupting more.. prominent and easier to use (by having larger time windows when it can be applied).

 

Atm many spells spells had their effects being subpar for a 5-8s cast. And this means that if we want to have a few 6s spells, we have to select a few which to buff. Fireball looks quite fitting for me. As it also enables new ways to play. Now the thing is how exactly to balance it. We have to take into account damage boosters (think of empower, evoker-assassins, damage multipliers on crit and overpenetration), speed boosters (dex, bloodlust, frenzy/swift-strikes/potions), the feel (the effect should match the duration spent casting), the frustration (if it fails), the overpowerness (if it oneshots), and so on

But basically if a spell enables a new play-style that it is worthy the spent effort, and feels well and can appeal to a set of players; but at the same time it is not something that they will repeat over and over in 100% of cases (because it turned out to be... too efficient) - then the mission is achieved)

 

Fire ball

 

37-48 (like now)

 

4s Casting time (~ -15% with rounding)

1s Recovery

I haven't touched Fireball damage in BetaSpeedMod. While it's cast/recovery duration is 4.5s/1.5s, which is kinda close to what you are proposing.

 

As for BetaBalanceMod - I'm still testing it. And must say that it feels different on Normal vs PotD. I've increased the base damage to match the increased casting time. But increasing it further is a quite arguable path, since there is also Empower; and we should take into account even the most unexpected parties, like 5 evokers opening with empowered fireballs from stealth. What fireball asks in my opinion is actually more reliability. It would be frustrating to graze or especially miss, after a 6s cast. So I'll likely add acc bonus in future iteration.

Edited February 18, 2018 by MaxQuest

[IndiraLightfoot]

MaxQuest's last suggestion concerning Fireball I'm all for after having tested plenty of them today. I'd like to add that this add flavour and some "reason" to this spell, with a new fab effect to beat, since missing with a fireball, when enemies get caught in it, this should be a rare thing, and grazing and hitting should be the rule.

[Wormerine]

I did about half of a run with Beta Balance Mod. Have been enjoying it quite a bit. Spellcasting has a much better flow now. At least on Veteran, Fireball seems a bit good right now. I have been using a rather unoptimized party - base cipher + autoleveled stock merceneries for a quick start, and Wizard is outDPSing others by quite a bit. Doing AoE 70 damage seems a bit much. 

I will certainly continue playing around with it. You certainly know what you are doing MaxQuest

Edited February 18, 2018 by Wormerine

[DozingDragon]

 

As for BetaBalanceMod - I'm still testing it. And must say that it feels different on Normal vs PotD. I've increased the base damage to match the increased casting time. But increasing it further is a quite arguable path, since there is also Empower; and we should take into account even the most unexpected parties, like 5 evokers opening with empowered fireballs from stealth. What fireball asks in my opinion is actually more reliability. It would be frustrating to graze or especially miss, after a 6s cast. So I'll likely add acc bonus in future iteration.

 

 

As opposed to adding a flat accuracy bonus, which could result in more crits, why not convert 50% of misses with a fireball (or other long casts without a DOT effect) to grazes?  Is that effect even possible with the current beta? 

[IndiraLightfoot]

Well, MaxQuest's BalancedMod encouraged me to try out all sorts of wizards in my first playthrough with it, and, most surprisingly, I fell a bit in love with... *drumroll*

The enchanter!

 

Given his slight adjustments to spells, I've just run through the entire beta a second time with his balanced mod, but this time with an army of two kinds of dual-wielding mountain dwarves (all of them equipped with exceptional plates and exceptional weapons and nothing else):

Then I rolled three battlemages: devoted/enchanter as well as two warcallers: devoted/skald.

Even greater: I took the time and made my custom AI scripts for them, and it turned out great, like a well-tuned pianola!

This party played itself. I just pressed attack once as soon as an enemy was detected and watched the super-fast mayhem begin.

I used stuff like Swift Feet and a few other enchantment buff spells (and I had them self-buffing). I actually sacrificed Dex, and maxed out STR, CON, INT, with decent RES and PER.

The result was smashing. It felt like having five Agent Smiths a la Matrix in a Renaissance CRPG setting.

 

Here are some screenies from my "Grab the Popcorn, folks, and Watch the Movie Deadfire Matrix: Girl Power"-playthrough. Such a treat after a busy day!:

 

[Nail]

Aww, I just had a great message:

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So I played more and whacked a lot of stuff in melee between casting spells. So far I've noticed that my Battlemage seems to be just a bit longer using fan of flames than he does swinging his greatsword, both in scale armor with no potions. However when he gains a dexterity inspiration it seems to switch with great sword attacks taking longer than FoF casts. Since weapon speeds were discussed as well, does anyone else think that going back to 3 sec recovery would feel better for weapons than the current 4 sec?

Edited February 19, 2018 by KaineParker

[Boeroer]

So-so. On the one hand I find it ok that armor penalty has a big effect on weapons' recovery time - because armor is very important in Deadfire (too bad Deadfire pushes you to either wear none or the thickest). And a plate armor does slow you down. I personally would also like to see a slowdown of movement, maybe less recovery penalty but also stride penalty. Since movement speed and recovery times are out of balance anyways (or so it feels). 

 

On the other hand all that lenthgy recovering looks kind of stupid in a "real time with pause" system. 

Edited February 19, 2018 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

Well, MaxQuest's BalancedMod encouraged me to try out all sorts of wizards in my first playthrough with it, and, most surprisingly, I fell a bit in love with... *drumroll*

 

The enchanter!

 

Given his slight adjustments to spells, I've just run through the entire beta a second time with his balanced mod, but this time with an army of two kinds of dual-wielding mountain dwarves (all of them equipped with exceptional plates and exceptional weapons and nothing else):

 

Then I rolled three battlemages: devoted/enchanter as well as two warcallers: devoted/skald.

Even greater: I took the time and made my custom AI scripts for them, and it turned out great, like a well-tuned pianola!

 

This party played itself. I just pressed attack once as soon as an enemy was detected and watched the super-fast mayhem begin.

 

I used stuff like Swift Feet and a few other enchantment buff spells (and I had them self-buffing). I actually sacrificed Dex, and maxed out STR, CON, INT, with decent RES and PER.

 

The result was smashing. It felt like having five Agent Smiths a la Matrix in a Renaissance CRPG setting.

I am glad you had a blast)

But looking at your party composition, are you sure the mod played a decent role in your enjoyement? I am asking because:

- I haven't touched enchanters much, aside from speeding up Merciless Gaze and Eldritch Aim from 3.0/0 -> 0.5/0.

- the mod also indirectly sped-up the recovery durations of weapons closer to their beta2 values: 4s (for average weapons) -> 3s; 3s (for fast weapons) -> 1.5s (that's also why I mentioned adjusting weapon damage for next mod iteration; and yeap I have checked KDubya's weapon related threads ^^)

 

Since weapon speeds were discussed as well, does anyone else think that going back to 3 sec recovery would feel better for weapons than the current 4 sec?

Weapons use the same recovery categories as spells (in bb_attack.gamedatabundle). So average weapons already should have 3s recovery, while fast weapons - 1.5s. I'll will double check this in the evening. Edited February 19, 2018 by MaxQuest

[MaxQuest]

Well, MaxQuest's BalancedMod encouraged me to try out all sorts of wizards in my first playthrough with it, and, most surprisingly, I fell a bit in love with... *drumroll*

 

The enchanter!

 

Given his slight adjustments to spells, I've just run through the entire beta a second time with his balanced mod, but this time with an army of two kinds of dual-wielding mountain dwarves (all of them equipped with exceptional plates and exceptional weapons and nothing else):

 

Then I rolled three battlemages: devoted/enchanter as well as two warcallers: devoted/skald.

Even greater: I took the time and made my custom AI scripts for them, and it turned out great, like a well-tuned pianola!

 

This party played itself. I just pressed attack once as soon as an enemy was detected and watched the super-fast mayhem begin.

 

I used stuff like Swift Feet and a few other enchantment buff spells (and I had them self-buffing). I actually sacrificed Dex, and maxed out STR, CON, INT, with decent RES and PER.

 

The result was smashing. It felt like having five Agent Smiths a la Matrix in a Renaissance CRPG setting.

I am glad you had a blast)

But looking at your party composition, are you sure the mod played a decent role in your enjoyement? I am asking because:

- I haven't touched enchanters much, aside from speeding up Merciless Gaze and Eldritch Aim from 3.0/0 -> 0.5/0.

- the mod also indirectly sped-up the recovery durations of weapons closer to their beta2 values: 4s (for average weapons) -> 3s; 3s (for fast weapons) -> 1.5s (that's also why I mentioned adjusting weapon damage for next mod iteration; and yeap I have checked KDubya's weapon related threads ^^)

 

Since weapon speeds were discussed as well, does anyone else think that going back to 3 sec recovery would feel better for weapons than the current 4 sec?

Weapons use the same recovery categories as spells (in bb_attack.gamedatabundle). So average weapons already should have 3s recovery, while fast weapons - 1.5s. I'll will double check this in the evening.

 

I personally would also like to see a slowdown of movement, maybe less recovery penalty but also stride penalty.

Agreed enemies run too fast in combat.

I haven't found a global setting, but there were a set of movers per creature_type. Have temporary set Lagufaeth running speed to 4 (down from 6) in BetaBalanceMod. Interestingly it feels much better (and need I say it was hilarious at value: 1).

On one hand I understand that lagufaeth are designed to be fast. On the other - it doesn't feel good, when they stampede you. And on the... third hand they can use wild sprint and fleet feet, since there are many barbarians and wizards between them.

Edited February 19, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

Yes, but I also meant if armors not only had recovery penalty but also stride penalty you could slow down movement "globally". Less stride is also a way to lower dps (because more time needed for reaching enemies means less time you deal damage) - as is recoery penalty. It mostly affects melee characters (who need to move a lot more than others) who still feel to strong anyways. At the same time you could lower recovery pernalties a bit. This could mean the overall dps doesn't change much while the balance of recovery to stride gets fixed (at least a bit).

 

Just came to my mind and I think it's not the worst idea. It would improve:

 

- the sluggishness of long melee recoveries ("why doesn't he do anything")

- the "too fast" movement speed (since enemies like Lagufaeth might also wear armor)

 

While it also makes sense that armor would slow you down a bit. I mean your movement speed. Several people who fight in plate armor of all sorts say that it's not so much the attack speed that suffers (that, too, but not as much as you would think), but the movement (footwork, running etc.). Don't know, never held a sword or wore an armor myself.

Edited February 19, 2018 by Boeroer

[mrmonocle]

I think the problem of long recovery times for 2handlers is attack animation affected by dex. IMHO it should be fixed, only recovery time should be effected.

[MaxQuest]

[...]While it also makes sense that armor would slow you down a bit. I mean your movement speed. Several people who fight in plate armor of all sorts say that it's not so much the attack speed that suffers (that, too, but not as much as you would think), but the movement (footwork, running etc.).

^ I understood that, and really like the idea, at least on paper. There could be some occasional inconvinience in practice, where lighter-armored offtanks could get ahead of the main tank, if you have the following formation:

_______main_tank_______

offtank_________offtank

 

But generally all of my offtanks (aside from 2 barbarians) were in plate armor anyway.

So yes, I like the suggestion. And although can't implement it through editing the gamedatabundles, we can still discuss the corresponding values.

Something like -1 stride for heavy armor, and -0.5 stride for medium armor? With Armored Grace taking care of this penalty as well?)

Edited February 19, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

Something like that, yes.

 

Concerning "off tank is faster than main tank": as far as I know all party members have unified move speed outside of combat, so this shouldn't be a problem. Of course it can be if you are on autopilot and your frontline immediately rushes towards the enemy once the encounter starts.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

I am glad you had a blast)

But looking at your party composition, are you sure the mod played a decent role in your enjoyement? I am asking because:

- I haven't touched enchanters much, aside from speeding up Merciless Gaze and Eldritch Aim from 3.0/0 -> 0.5/0.

- the mod also indirectly sped-up the recovery durations of weapons closer to their beta2 values: 4s (for average weapons) -> 3s; 3s (for fast weapons) -> 1.5s (that's also why I mentioned adjusting weapon damage for next mod iteration; and yeap I have checked KDubya's weapon related threads ^^)

 

 

 Heh, I did have Merciless Gaze on them, but otherwise you didn't change any of my enchanting spells (even slowing them minimally, 0.4->0.5s in some cases).

But like I said, your very mod encouraged me to roll wizards and then, in my second playthru, to make a multi-class wizard I'd never even try before, so I'm happy nevertheless. 

This is what it's all about - encouraging us to build whatever!!

Thank you for your hard work, MaxQuest!

 

EDIT: Part of my exhilaration was also my carefully programmed AI system, I reckon. It pushed the right buttons for each and every character with a timing and speed, I'd never could do, so that actually enhanced my party as well, I'm, sure.

Edited February 19, 2018 by IndiraLightfoot