Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers, part 2

[morhilane]

 

That being said, I do not understand why they changed a working system ( PoE1 DR) for something new (PoE2 penetration).

 

People criticised it. As far as I can tell those criticisms took two forms: (i) that it was difficult to understand and (ii) that along with the graze system it resulted in lots of hits doing tiny amounts of damage (apparently a lot of people prefer to miss than to hit for a tiny amount).

 

And then they got back their miss-a-lot in Deadfire beta 1 but still complained about it because what they really want is big numbers all the time and to kill everything in 1 seconds.

 

Although, the issue Josh mention is mostly that people complained it was too hard to understand. Which I always replay with "Do people who bought BG2 without any D&D knowledge understand THACO?" The answer is no.

 

POE1 DR system is easier to understand than THACO and it doesn't need knowing any maths about it either, just that higher = better. On top of that, mechanically it worked, what did not work is the balance. That happened because it was using % for damage increase instead of flat numbers while DR was flat numbers, end results: high damage weapons hit even harder and made armor useless while small damage weapons hit saw almost no improvement and with grazes you got a whooping 1 damage regardless if someone was wearing armor or not.

 

Deadfire is slightly better because the AR/Penetration system is a % damage reduction. The issue with it is how the balance is done between weapon penetration and armor AR.

[VincentNZ]

I would definitely agree that PoE was complicated in it's game mechanics, but BG2 was way worse in that regard. PoE always explained the things, but there was an awful lot to learn about what each attribute does, how damage is calculated and how you can defend yourself from different sources.

 

From everything I read on PoE2 I would say it is more complex and likely equally transparent, but again there are so many things to think about that it might overwhelm many players.

 

I would absolutely second that Dragon Age had a very good combat system. It was not as shallow as one would think, but very accessible and easy to grasp, whilst you could still crunch some numbers to reach maximum potential. A very elegant system, where everybody can step right back in.

Pillars really scrapped a lot of the dead weight from the BG mechanics, but still resembled it's spirit very closely, while Dragon Age was really far away from BG2. I prefer PoE overall, but one has to admire how simple good mechanics can be.

[JerekKruger]

Although, the issue Josh mention is mostly that people complained it was too hard to understand. Which I always replay with "Do people who bought BG2 without any D&D knowledge understand THACO?" The answer is no.

POE1 DR system is easier to understand than THACO and it doesn't need knowing any maths about it either, just that higher = better. On top of that, mechanically it worked, what did not work is the balance. That happened because it was using % for damage increase instead of flat numbers while DR was flat numbers, end results: high damage weapons hit even harder and made armor useless while small damage weapons hit saw almost no improvement and with grazes you got a whooping 1 damage regardless if someone was wearing armor or not.

 

Deadfire is slightly better because the AR/Penetration system is a % damage reduction. The issue with it is how the balance is done between weapon penetration and armor AR.

 

Good point. I guess you could solve it either by (a) making damage bonuses flat bonuses or (b) making armour give % damage reduction instead.

 

I guess one of my main problems with the new penetration system is it feels clunky. Compare "subtract DR from damage roll to obtain damage done" to "if your penetration is below the enemy's armour you do X% damage, if it's equal or greater you do full damage and if it's twice or more you do Y% damage". It feels like a fix that's been thrown at the problem and it leads to weird break points where a single extra point of penetration can increase damage dramatically.

[morhilane]

 

Although, the issue Josh mention is mostly that people complained it was too hard to understand. Which I always replay with "Do people who bought BG2 without any D&D knowledge understand THACO?" The answer is no.

 

POE1 DR system is easier to understand than THACO and it doesn't need knowing any maths about it either, just that higher = better. On top of that, mechanically it worked, what did not work is the balance. That happened because it was using % for damage increase instead of flat numbers while DR was flat numbers, end results: high damage weapons hit even harder and made armor useless while small damage weapons hit saw almost no improvement and with grazes you got a whooping 1 damage regardless if someone was wearing armor or not.

 

Deadfire is slightly better because the AR/Penetration system is a % damage reduction. The issue with it is how the balance is done between weapon penetration and armor AR.

 

Good point. I guess you could solve it either by (a) making damage bonuses flat bonuses or (b) making armour give % damage reduction instead.

 

I guess one of my main problems with the new penetration system is it feels clunky. Compare "subtract DR from damage roll to obtain damage done" to "if your penetration is below the enemy's armour you do X% damage, if it's equal or greater you do full damage and if it's twice or more you do Y% damage". It feels like a fix that's been thrown at the problem and it leads to weird break points where a single extra point of penetration can increase damage dramatically.

 

You shouldn't even think about the maths, unless you are trying to mix/max every situations.

 

Technically, the game would be balanced with every weapons having the upper hand against certain enemies and the lower hand against others and having a good balance of these creatures over the course of the game. And by that I mean a hatchet is going to be crap against a beetle, but it is going to be good against a Delemgan, instead of the the hatchet is crap against everything or the game being filled by beetles and there being just 3 Delemgan.

 

Unfortunately, Josh asked the encounter design team to put Monk and Wizard in "plate" to show it was possible, so expect every enemies to require high penetration because of crap balance planification...

Edited March 15, 2018 by morhilane

[Boeroer]

Well maybe he also told them to put paladins and fighters into padded armor...

[Blades of Vanatar]

These armor systems would balance better if some type of encumberanced is used to balance out heavy armor abuse. My weakling Wizzy would have all kinds of trouble moving aroundin Plate. Hence give him a negative mod to his defense because of it. It’s not a class thing, but a stat thing.

[JerekKruger]

You shouldn't even think about the maths, unless you are trying to mix/max every situations.

My day job is doing maths research, it's hard not to

 

In general I also like thinking about game mechanics and I like them to be elegant. This isn't a good reason for Obsidian to change the system, but it's a good enough reason for me not to like it.

[Madscientist]

One thing I don't lack about the Deadfire PEN system - its less elegant than the one from PoE1. In the first game - you do damage, it goes against enemy armor and gets reduced. Simple to understand and naturally makes certain weapon more useful in certain situations - you go against enemy in high armor and fast, low damage will be less effective as damage will be subtracted from every hit - you use a slow, hard hitting weapon, and the armor resistance is subtracted only once. Easy, simple, organic. 

 

Deadfire on the other hand, every weapon works the same way - you are 1 PEN below target's armor rating: 25% damage is subtracted. Therefore, a new Penetration stat to make various weapon more or less effective in certain situations. Not great - Penetration is yet another stat players need to keep an eye on, and adds little new depth to combat.

 

However, thing I like about the new system, is that it makes it easy to recognize when you do a wrong thing. I wonder how much unsatisfaction with the new system comes from a better feedback than an actual mechanic - in PoE1 you could attack enemy with ineffective weapon and simply never realize that unless you pay a very close attention. To be honest I rarely changed my weapons in PoE1. With Deadfire system its really easy to judge when your weapon is effective and when it is not. I tend to change targets, switch weapons, consider my spells much more in Deadfire than I did in PoE1. If I make a bad decision, it is quite easy to recognize. 

If the problem is to inform the player if his actions are ineffective its easy to do.

When you do minimum damage in the PoE1 system you see a message similar to the "low pen" message of PoE2. Plus an immunity message if you do no damage at all.

Problem solved.

 

Even in BG the chars said that they need a different weapon if you do not do damage on hit.

[bleedthefreak]

I was doing some testing after reading Josh's statement that my fighter/rogue should be wearing medium armor to be more survivable, so I used the console to spawn exceptional scale armor. Didn't seem to make a difference. I did some testing on a specific fight and found that with either exceptional leather armor or exceptional scale armor the numbers were about the same. Looking closer at the attacks being made, the penetration values were equal to (in almost every case) or higher than what exceptional scale even offered. Equal to is basically means the armor is a huge penalty, dropping my recovery speed 35%, for no gain (except protection from over penetration - which I agree shouldn't be discounted).

 

Plate fared much better when testing with Exceptional Plate, but not as much as I'd have thought. The numbers weren't significantly lower, in some cases (though it didn't help one of the spells being cast, Necrotic Lance, is like the cure for Plate Armor).

 

In the end it didn't seem like armor was even that useful. I like the penetration system but worry it requires very precise balance in terms of numbers (what penetration does the party have? what does the enemy have in this encounter?) to make it feel right for every fight. I think in many ways I do actually prefer armor just reducing damage instead of the penetration system because then at least some protection is better than none (which is historically accurate at least). I don't like how it feels like a waste to be wearing Exceptional Scale Armor and having it do absolutely no good, may as well be wearing clothing.

 

In fact, wearing clothing would probably be even better because no defense is as good as an offense, and attacking more rapidly means dropping your enemies before they finish your unarmored characters off. 

 

EDIT - I should clarify for my testing I was just standing still with the rest of the party out of the combat and not actually playing/attacking but letting them hit me to get numbers. In a real fight things would have gone differently of course, so I may not be testing this right.

Edited March 15, 2018 by bleedthefreak

[Wormerine]

If the problem is to inform the player if his actions are ineffective its easy to do.

 

 

When you do minimum damage in the PoE1 system you see a message similar to the "low pen" message of PoE2. Plus an immunity message if you do no damage at all.

Problem solved.

 

Even in BG the chars said that they need a different weapon if you do not do damage on hit.

Sure, though in PoE1 deciding when your weapon isn't effective isn't that easy. At what point your attacks become less effective and you would do better by switching? As loss of damage is gradual, there is a wide window of the "sort of" effective. When you hit armor your damage gets always reduced. At what point, are you better off switching the kit? In order to make an informed decision you need to do some number crunching, unless it is an extreme case.

 

I think that Deadfire intentionally changed it to a wide window of static damage (when pen is = or > than AR). You do either well, or you don't. Tis true that in BG you were notified when your weapon wasn't effective, but it was an even more extreme system than Deadfire's as it was based on immunities toward certain quality weapons. You either have +3 weapon or you don't.

[Yosharian]

Having a computer do all the work takes away from the fun

[VincentNZ]

Having a computer do all the work takes away from the fun

Yeah but if you need spreadsheets to just figure out the basics it is no fun either. :D

 

I mean PoE1 systems did absolutely allow you to maximise your output and to skill on a certain level. It seems PoE2 will be even less limiting in many cases, with all that weapon switching, heavy armour and all weapons available to everyone. BUt with all these liberties you hit a lot of balance problems that would have not arisen if you simply would not allow casters armour, or restrict rangers, ciphers and rogues to light/medium armour. Hard caps are a good thing at times because you do not have to put up with the ingenuity of the players' hivemind.

Edited March 15, 2018 by VincentNZ

[kanisatha]

I put my people in a variety of armor, even though it's suboptimal, because I like variety. I am wildly not a fan of Pillars' "full plate or go naked" tendency.

Nice to see I'm not the only one who does this.   I go with variety for weapons and weapon types as well, and gladly sell off "better" weapons and armor to retain variety across my party. Being optimal is mind-numbingly tedious and boring.

[MortyTheGobbo]

Let me be absolutely clear here. I would much rather I had more of an incentive not to put my front-line characters into as heavy and armor as I can, or my back-liners into something heavier than clothing/padded. But it looks like Deadfire will follow Pillars in this matter. It's unfortunately pretty common for RPGs that remove arbitrary class-based restrictions.

[Boeroer]

That has nothing to do with class based restrictions. Those are just crap and force certain setups because items are poorly balanced. They take away options and reduce variety and replay value.

 

Once there is a reason to wear a certain type of armor it will be used. If it's a design goal that every armor has its place in your game your job as a designer is to make sure that every armor brings something useful to the table. I can't see this in Deadfire yet - but we don't know unique armors yet. If I only look at the system and compare DR with AR/PEN I'd say Deadfire does a worse job than PoE when it comes to the balance/viability of all types of armor.

 

A system like DSA where thick armor reduces your accuracy and defense is a good example how you can create motivation to not wear heavy armor (unless you want to invest in talents or abilities that remove penalties). Sadly, also DSA uses class restrictions for armor and even weapons.

Edited March 16, 2018 by Boeroer

[draego]

 

I put my people in a variety of armor, even though it's suboptimal, because I like variety. I am wildly not a fan of Pillars' "full plate or go naked" tendency.

 

Nice to see I'm not the only one who does this.   I go with variety for weapons and weapon types as well, and gladly sell off "better" weapons and armor to retain variety across my party. Being optimal is mind-numbingly tedious and boring.

 

 

Yep i also switch it up in POE1. everyone got different armor types pretty much, but if i am getting totally rekt for moving some to medium or not get a clear benefit in POE2 it will be really annoying

Edited March 16, 2018 by draego

[Yosharian]

That has nothing to do with class based restrictions. Those are just crap and force certain setups because items are poorly balanced. They take away options and reduce variety and replay value.

 

Once there is a reason to wear a certain type of armor it will be used. If it's a design goal that every armor has its place in your game your job as a designer is to make sure that every armor brings something useful to the table. I can't see this in Deadfire yet - but we don't know unique armors yet. If I only look at the system and compare DR with AR/PEN I'd say Deadfire does a worse job than PoE when it comes to the balance/viability of all types of armor.

 

A system like DSA where thick armor reduces your accuracy and defense is a good example how you can create motivation to not wear heavy armor (unless you want to invest in talents or abilities that remove penalties). Sadly, also DSA uses class restrictions for armor and even weapons.

 

I agree, every armor needs to bring something to the table otherwise why bother

[Madscientist]

 

If the problem is to inform the player if his actions are ineffective its easy to do.

 

 

When you do minimum damage in the PoE1 system you see a message similar to the "low pen" message of PoE2. Plus an immunity message if you do no damage at all.

Problem solved.

 

Even in BG the chars said that they need a different weapon if you do not do damage on hit.

Sure, though in PoE1 deciding when your weapon isn't effective isn't that easy. At what point your attacks become less effective and you would do better by switching? As loss of damage is gradual, there is a wide window of the "sort of" effective. When you hit armor your damage gets always reduced. At what point, are you better off switching the kit? In order to make an informed decision you need to do some number crunching, unless it is an extreme case.

 

I think that Deadfire intentionally changed it to a wide window of static damage (when pen is = or > than AR). You do either well, or you don't. Tis true that in BG you were notified when your weapon wasn't effective, but it was an even more extreme system than Deadfire's as it was based on immunities toward certain quality weapons. You either have +3 weapon or you don't.

 

Like I wrote it before: Your weapon is ineffective when you deal minimum damage. If enemy DR is higher than 80% of your damage than you will do 20% damage as minimum damage. The combat log already tells you when you do minimum damage, so it should be no problem that the game also gives you another message that is not so easy to overlook.

 

You are free to play however you want and the game should not tell you: "When you switch from weapon A to weapon B your damage will go up by 5%."

But when you do minimum damage all the time the game should tell you: "Most of the damage you try to do is eaten by enemy DR. Maybe you should think about changing your strategy."

[Madscientist]

That has nothing to do with class based restrictions. Those are just crap and force certain setups because items are poorly balanced. They take away options and reduce variety and replay value.

 

Once there is a reason to wear a certain type of armor it will be used. If it's a design goal that every armor has its place in your game your job as a designer is to make sure that every armor brings something useful to the table. I can't see this in Deadfire yet - but we don't know unique armors yet. If I only look at the system and compare DR with AR/PEN I'd say Deadfire does a worse job than PoE when it comes to the balance/viability of all types of armor.

 

A system like DSA where thick armor reduces your accuracy and defense is a good example how you can create motivation to not wear heavy armor (unless you want to invest in talents or abilities that remove penalties). Sadly, also DSA uses class restrictions for armor and even weapons.

 

In any computer RPG I always used the heaviest armor a char could wear unless a lighter armor had a really good special ability.

I agree that I like the DSA armor system a lot. Armor absorbs damage, but it gives a penalty to hit, parry and dodge. In terms of PoE1, armor gives DR but lowers acc and deflection.

 

unfortuatly all DSA computer games were quite unbalanced.

The Realms of Arcadia trilogy ( rewarded as best CRPG 1991, 1993 and 1995) used exactly the pnp rules, but lots of things could not be implemented so most of the skills and spells were completely useless. (like you could spend points in riding skill but you could not ride anything in the game). Class balance was terrible too. I went with 4 fighters and 2 mages and saw no reason to ever use a different caster than a mage. Mages get an unbreakable magic 1h weapon that does not have hit/parry penalty and also acted as torch, rope and reduces mana consumption while all other casters except elves could only use crap weapons, but elves were very fragile. Mages could change their magic skills points for mana points and since you only need a few spells they ended up with more HP and mana than any other class. Fighters could use any weapon or armor while all other non casters had restrictions without having any bonus compared to fighters except different starting skill values, but fighters could improve all those skills as well. There were tons of magic swords (1h and 2h) but I remember only 3 magic weapons you could find that were a different category. An axe with tons of damage but pathetic parry, a magic bow and a spear that you could throw once and then it was gone.

 

Drakensang was better, but still for from perfect. Basically there were only 2 classes: casters and non casters. Casters cannot cast when wearing metal armor. Specialized mages were still the best casters and fighters could still wear anything while other classes still had restrictions without having any bonus except different starting skill values. At least they adopted the skills and spells to the computer game so that each skill and spell had at least some possible use in the game.

 

When I look back there have been big progress in the developement of computer RPGs. Regarding balancing and how easy it is to understand there are many improvements over the years from Realm of Arcadia -> IE games -> Dragon Age: Origins -> Pillars of Eternity1.

So regarding game mechanics ( how easy is it to understand the basic system, class balance, many different usuful builds, . . .) PoE1 is the best game ever, at least from the games I know. Story wise, PST is the best game ever with MotB and KotoR2 coming after that.

 

By the way: What does MCA now? Is he still a kickstarter stretch goal as main job or does he work on a project of his own?

Edited March 16, 2018 by Madscientist

[Sedrefilos]

The deep voiced narrator should start talking "you should change your strategy before venturing forth"

[JerekKruger]

DSA?

 

Also I thought characters said things like "my weapon does nothing" when your weapon is sufficiently ineffective. It didn't seem to only happen for immunities.

[Boeroer]

"The Dark Eye" in English.

 

DSA is the German abbreviation.

 

CRPGs based on that Pen & Paper RPG are for example:

 

- Blackguards I & II

- Drakensang

- Realms of Arkania series

 

and so on... nothing too spectacular, but ok.

 

It's Germany's biggest RPG system. It has some really douchy rules but also some great ones (gets better with every iteration though). Its strength is the overbundance of lore, background info and gaming material. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Boeroer

[Messier-31]

Das Schwarze Auge

[Enoch]

With all the discussion this week of armor, Polish, and armor polish, I think we missed an important tweet.

[Messier-31]

With all the discussion this week of armor, Polish, and armor polish, I think we missed an important tweet.

 

Aye.