My Resolve Suggestions

[Novem]

I find that the best way to brainstorm is to throw as many ideas as possible at the wall and see what sticks. So that's what I'm gonna do. I also think my perspective will be pretty helpful, considering I'm really not a numbers guy so I only really think in terms of raw game mechanics rather than how it scales. That also means most of these ideas will probably be bad (plus I'm going to try and make some pretty out there ideas just to stretch the exercise a bit). But that's okay, even if we can't come up with anything or the devs ignore it and revert the changes back to POE1, it's still a lot of fun (at least IMO)!

 

Everyone can join in. Throw all your ideas out there no matter how out there they seem. Feel free to expand on my ideas as well

 

- The Tyranny route, where Resolve reduces the duration of afflictions. Personally, this is my preference.

 

- Move healing specifically from Might to Resolve, rather than that and spell damage, while increasing the bonus.

 

- Reduce damage received from disengagement attacks.

 

- Reduce recovery penalties incurred from equipment, and/or consumables, and/or reduce the penalty for weapon and grimoire switching during combat.

 

- Increased length of beneficial effects (or is this already done by Intellect's duration bonus? it probably is, if so ignore this suggestion).

 

- Increased Armor and/or flat percentage damage reduction (IE, X Resolve means you receive Y percent less damage after all other calculations).

 

- Decrease the effect of injuries, and/or increase the number of injuries a character is capable of receiving before dying permanently, and/or a random chance not to receive an injury when they otherwise would.

 

- A random chance for the character to get back up automatically after they fall in combat.

 

- A random chance to cancel a harmful effect or downgrade an affliction.

 

- A random chance to absorb the impact of a blow without taking damage. Maybe even one that you can use at will.

 

- Reduced negative effects from Modals/Stances which are a trade-off.

 

- Increased number of resource points for abilities.

 

- A random chance to gain an empower, rather than a random chance to have an ability empowered.

 

- Reduces the damage incurred from critical hits, or a random chance to convert a crit to a normal hit.

 

- Increased passive effects from resting (consuming food).

 

- Increased duration of effects from consumables.

 

- Some type of powerful bonus when an ally falls in combat (as an aside considering the companion relationship system, it would be cool to have some mechanical benefits from people being closer to each other during combat, kinda like supports from Fire Emblem/Bonds from XCOM 2 War of the Chosen).

 

- Reduced ingredient requirements for crafting (I said some of these ideas would be out there).

 

- Increased bonuses from equipment.

 

- Increased movement speed and/or reduced movement penalties.

 

- Increased damage-type specific bonuses from equipment (IE, if a piece of armor gives you X armor rating against Y damage type, the rating will be higher from a bonus from resolve).

 

- Bonus points for all your Skills (IE Mechanics and History).

 

Okay, so that's everything I could possibly think of. Hopefully there's something that sounds useful in there, xD

Edited February 27, 2018 by Novem

[CENIC]

Resolve reduces the duration of afflictions

(-5%, to match with how INT increases the duration of inspirations)

Resolve decreases the effect of injuries

(Maybe downgrade injuries to less severe ones?)

To make Resolve useful to the majority of players while also keeping it balanced and lore-friendly, one (maybe both) of these is the best option. (STR should be reverted back to MIG if one of these changes is made to RES, obviously)

Edited February 27, 2018 by CENIC

[wahmann1]

1. Regeneration, which represents determination to keep going (maybe 10% of total hp +/- 1% per resolve over 10 over the course of a relatively long period, like 20 seconds) and stacks with Fighter recovery.
2. After being knocked to 0 hp, keep recovering phantom hp through regeneration and stand back up when you reach some minimum number (maybe 10% of total hp), but you keep your injuries each time and if everyone is down at the same time, party is dead.
3. Increased chance of being maimed instead of killed when killing is called for. I'm not a PotD player and I almost always restart if I lose a companion I like, so I would like the odds to be good that you keep getting more and more maimed instead of killed if you have decent resolve. (Maybe 40% +/- 4% per resolve over 10.) If you don't know whether the party member will rise at the end of the encounter, it might stop me from rage-quitting when they die, too, and I could come to accept a companion death if the encounter is hard-fought.
4. I like reducing duration of afflictions (and intensity if it is not too complicated mathematically). Maybe reduce affliction penalty by +/-1 per Resolve over 10. You might want to add a mental affliction for negative Resolve whenever an affliction is applied called "Losing your Cool" that gives -1 penalty per Resolve under 10, rather than try to increase affliction penalties for poor Resolve.

This is assuming Might is reinstated with the damage and healing bonus currently given to Resolve.

[Novem]

Just for people who don't read my whole post, my favorite of my ideas was actually increasing/decreasing movement speed (or Stride as it's called in POE2) through Resolve. That stat is useful for every class in the game, but as far as I'm aware there isn't a way to directly impact it except through abilities. I honestly think even if it isn't applied to resolve that Stride should have it's own attribute, or be folded into Dexterity.

 

Other than that I also really like reducing the effects/severity of afflictions, if duration isn't what Obsidian wants to go for.

 

Percentage damage reduction per point also doesn't sound too bad.

 

Other than that I think my ideas are mostly trash, haha

Edited February 27, 2018 by Novem

[Boeroer]

Actually I like the idea that resolve influences your class resource (Discipline/Guile/Bond). But what happens with Focus/Wounds/Phrases/Spells?

 

Bonus Wounds or Focus at the start of the encounter would work. But more/less spells? Too good/harsh.

[Wormerine]

I really cant come up with a good idea. I like the increasing/decreasing of afflictions, at least conceptually.

 

I noticed that a lot of those suggestions talk about benefits only, while a system attached to the attribute has to have up and downsides, as well as be scalable with every level. For example things like maiming, or regeneration - what would be a downside of having resolve of 3? Constant raw damage? Chance to die on every injury gained?

 

The issue with resolve is that it needs to be tied to the existing chacter stats, and all of them are already accounted for. Random Empower seems gimmicky, and so do many of the suggestions above.

 

Another issue I have with Josh’s idea is that it will affect only a character who has a very high or very low resolve - unless they rig it, so it has to empower/depower after certain amount of skills were used.

[JerekKruger]

Actually I like the idea that resolve influences your class resource (Discipline/Guile/Bond). But what happens with Focus/Wounds/Phrases/Spells?

 

Bonus Wounds or Focus at the start of the encounter would work. But more/less spells? Too good/harsh.

 

Reduced threshold for gaining wounds, higher focus gain per point of damage and slight increase in recitation rate? Bit of a messy solution but should have the equivalent outcome of increasing resources by a given percentage.

[Insidous]

A chance to refund the resource used for an ability maybe? Like 4%/point to gain 100% back, or 4%/point-missing to double the cost (after cast and only if available). That means wizard have a chance for more a high level casts, but all classes have a reason to take it if they use abilities. In contrast to the empower thing a resource refund chance is still very random, but the impact is less flashy and hardly noticeable for enemies. 

 

In any case, I really think RES should affect ability use mostly. RP wise it fits with all hero characters, but I would say mostly with paladins, priests and wizards.

[Novem]

Actually I like the idea that resolve influences your class resource (Discipline/Guile/Bond). But what happens with Focus/Wounds/Phrases/Spells?

 

Bonus Wounds or Focus at the start of the encounter would work. But more/less spells? Too good/harsh.

 

Well for stuff that stacks up like wounds/phrases, maybe you could increase the rate at which you gain them or increase the upper limit of how many you can have at once. I don't think it would actually be too good, especially when it comes to spells, because of the action economy. But if it's something to be worried about, maybe you'd only get the extra resource points when combat lasts a certain amount of time?

 

Also I believe we're already getting phrases at the beginning of combat as a Chanter ability. At least according to one of the Q&A's where Josh said people liked Sirin's ability to hold phrases between encounters and it's likely there would be a similar feature in Deadfire.

 

 

The issue with resolve is that it needs to be tied to the existing chacter stats, and all of them are already accounted for.

 

Movement speed/Stride isn't.

[Wormerine]

A chance to refund the resource used for an ability maybe? Like 4%/point to gain 100% back, or 4%/point-missing to double the cost (after cast and only if available). That means wizard have a chance for more a high level casts, but all classes have a reason to take it if they use abilities. In contrast to the empower thing a resource refund chance is still very random, but the impact is less flashy and hardly noticeable for enemies. 

Still, what would be an effect of having resolve below 10. A chance for an ability to consume 2x resources? Not a fan. 

 

My main problem with the "random empower" isn't that it related to empower, but that it is random. Having a low chance roll to refund resources used, is still crappy and inconsistant with other attibutes, though possible less extreme that power spikes of radom empowerment. 

[Novem]

There's no need for any random chances. Just give X points of Resources for Y points of Resolve and balance the resource costs of the spells around those changes.

[Insidous]

There's no need for any random chances. Just give X points of Resources for Y points of Resolve and balance the resource costs of the spells around those changes.

 

That sounds super difficult to do for these very different resource mechanics. How do you give monks extra wounds, or more focus to ciphers? They would have to change how much guile and other basic resources people have because even a bonus of +1 is huge when the basic value is like 5 of something. How would it scale with a growing resource pool after leveling up?

 

Basically a redesign of core mechanics of all classes and even then the impact of resolve is very difficult to balance between those. I'd reckon this is something for a sequel, since even an expansion would hardly change this much

[Boeroer]

I repeat myself: what about spells? Not all classes have resources that would scale well.

 

I can see how wounds, focus and phrases might work, but spells?

 

What would you do? Grant 1 bonus spell for spell lvl 1 for 11 RES, 1 bonus for spell lvl 2 with 12 RES? What about 3 RES?

 

This doesn't work out too well I guess.

[Novem]

 

There's no need for any random chances. Just give X points of Resources for Y points of Resolve and balance the resource costs of the spells around those changes.

 

That sounds super difficult to do for these very different resource mechanics. How do you give monks extra wounds, or more focus to ciphers? They would have to change how much guile and other basic resources people have because even a bonus of +1 is huge when the basic value is like 5 of something. How would it scale with a growing resource pool after leveling up?

 

Basically a redesign of core mechanics of all classes and even then the impact of resolve is very difficult to balance between those. I'd reckon this is something for a sequel, since even an expansion would hardly change this much

 

 

Just give a fraction of a point per point of Resolve, like 0.25 per level. When the fraction reaches 1, you give 1 more point. You don't need 1-to-1 on points. You could balance it differently for each class and have that difference reflected on the character sheet. These are rather simple calculations, I don't know why you're making them sound so much more complicated than they actually are.

 

 

My main problem with the "random empower" isn't that it related to empower, but that it is random. Having a low chance roll to refund resources used, is still crappy and inconsistant with other attibutes, though possible less extreme that power spikes of radom empowerment.

 

I legitimately don't understand why people think the Resolve changes with random empowers is a good idea. I think people fundamentally misunderstand why these Resolve changes are necessary in the first place. Not enough people are taking Resolve on casters, right? Especially because Concentration is a binary now, right? And switching Spell Damage to resolve just created the opposite problem where Resolve isn't important to martial classes. So you need to give them a compelling reason, and when everything else is a reliable advantage and you have this one which is a possible advantage, people are going to choose the reliable advantage basically every time. Why would I choose a random chance to empower my abilities on a caster over just increasing the AOE, duration, accuracy, and base damage? Why would I choose it over action speed, damage, and health on a martial class?

[theBalthazar]

There is a possibility. But more complex :

 

3 - 0 bonus

4 - 1 bonus spell for spell level 1

13 - 1 bonus spell for spell level 10

14 - 2 bonus spells for spell level 1

20 - 2 bonus spells for spell level 7

 

etc etc.

Edited February 27, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Novem]

That's a way better solution than my idea that's for sure, but that's what you numbers guys are for, hue hue

 

Personally though I still think the best idea is tying Resolve to movement speed, since it's the only important stat you can't influence in character creation. It's important to all classes and has the possibility to create some really fun builds. It hurts when you dump it, but not so much that you absolutely need it. It allows for characters with more diverse playstyles. So I've decided that's the idea I'm getting behind.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Novem

[theBalthazar]

Problem, movement speed is a not a "killer-app"...

 

Personnally, disengaging and movement speed are the worst boost when they are given by a talent or an ability. Never pick theses poop : p

 

So Resolve continue to be a dump stat in this case.

[Insidous]

 

 

There's no need for any random chances. Just give X points of Resources for Y points of Resolve and balance the resource costs of the spells around those changes.

 

That sounds super difficult to do for these very different resource mechanics. How do you give monks extra wounds, or more focus to ciphers? They would have to change how much guile and other basic resources people have because even a bonus of +1 is huge when the basic value is like 5 of something. How would it scale with a growing resource pool after leveling up?

 

Basically a redesign of core mechanics of all classes and even then the impact of resolve is very difficult to balance between those. I'd reckon this is something for a sequel, since even an expansion would hardly change this much

 

 

Just give a fraction of a point per point of Resolve, like 0.25 per level. When the fraction reaches 1, you give 1 more point. You don't need 1-to-1 on points. You could balance it differently for each class and have that difference reflected on the character sheet. These are rather simple calculations, I don't know why you're making them sound so much more complicated than they actually are.

 

My main problem with the "random empower" isn't that it related to empower, but that it is random. Having a low chance roll to refund resources used, is still crappy and inconsistant with other attibutes, though possible less extreme that power spikes of radom empowerment.

 

I legitimately don't understand why people think the Resolve changes with random empowers is a good idea. I think people fundamentally misunderstand why these Resolve changes are necessary in the first place. Not enough people are taking Resolve on casters, right? Especially because Concentration is a binary now, right? And switching Spell Damage to resolve just created the opposite problem where Resolve isn't important to martial classes. So you need to give them a compelling reason, and when everything else is a reliable advantage and you have this one which is a possible advantage, people are going to choose the reliable advantage basically every time. Why would I choose a random chance to empower my abilities on a caster over just increasing the AOE, duration, accuracy, and base damage? Why would I choose it over action speed, damage, and health on a martial class?

 

 

If you give it a fraction each level there would be many situations, where +x resolve doesn't have an impact. It would be the only attribute to do so and then there will be situations where a +2 resolve buff on a helmet would be very good, then you'll level up and because of rounding the helmet suddenly wouldn't do anything.

With Balthazars solution as a wizard with access to level 3 spells, there wouldn't be a difference between having 6 or 13 resolve. So how could you balance it of being comparable to monks having a decreased wound threshold or ciphers getting more focus?

 

I don't think the random mechanic is necessarily the best way to go, but if the chances of occurrence become high enough and the impact isn't huge or unexpectedly different from the regular outcome, it is fine to me. 

Random-Empower-Resolve needs to be balanced to the point where the expected damage increase for high impact spells like fireball is about the same as the damage increase in might. Secondary effects like bonus duration, penetration and the bonus deflection make it ideally worthwhile over might if you rely on those spells, if your damage comes from auto attacks as well you'd prefer might. It's a thin line to balance, but I don't think it is impossible and the reliable bonus vs. spiked bonus is an interesting choice to me

[Novem]

"It's a thin line to balance, but I don't think it is impossible and the reliable bonus vs. spiked bonus is an interesting choice to me."

 

But it's not an interesting choice to the majority and as such it doesn't address the actual problem. Resolve still won't be an appealing stat, especially for martial classes. People aren't going to pick a maybe advantage over a definitely advantage unless the maybe advantage is so powerful that you can't pass it up.

 

Plus the bigger problem with these random empowers is that you don't know which abilities are being empowered or when (meaning it could empower an ability which doesn't really benefit from it), so it's effectiveness will vary wildly from absolute garbage to ludicrously overpowered based completely on luck. It needs to be able to turn encounters in order to be an appealing choice, which means the bonus you're getting needs to be good enough to be worth the investment, but the second it is it becomes a stat which makes every combat encounter be about luck of the draw rather than skill. This does in fact make it impossible to balance, no thin line here. Either it's so bad that it's useless, it's so mediocre that the other reliable options are more appealing, or it's so good that it breaks the game completely and encourages save scumming tactics.

 

If it is going to be in the game, and I'd really, really prefer it doesn't make it, then IMO the player should be deciding on how to use the empower rather than it just randomly triggering. At least then it's a slightly interactive mechanic that takes skill to utilize effectively, and is as such not impossible to balance around.

Edited February 27, 2018 by Novem

[Insidous]

"It's a thin line to balance, but I don't think it is impossible and the reliable bonus vs. spiked bonus is an interesting choice to me."

 

But it's not an interesting choice to the majority and as such it doesn't address the actual problem. Resolve still won't be an appealing stat, especially for martial classes. People aren't going to pick a maybe advantage over a definitely advantage unless the maybe advantage is so powerful that you can't pass it up.

 

Plus the bigger problem with these random empowers is that you don't know which abilities are being empowered or when (meaning it could empower an ability which doesn't really benefit from it), so it's effectiveness will vary wildly from absolute garbage to ludicrously overpowered based completely on luck. It needs to be able to turn encounters in order to be an appealing choice, which means the bonus you're getting needs to be good enough to be worth the investment, but the second it is it becomes a stat which makes every combat encounter be about luck of the draw rather than skill. This does in fact make it impossible to balance, no thin line here. Either it's so bad that it's useless, it's so mediocre that the other reliable options are more appealing, or it's so good that it breaks the game completely and encourages save scumming tactics.

 

If it is going to be in the game, and I'd really, really prefer it doesn't make it, then IMO the player should be deciding on how to use the empower rather than it just randomly triggering. At least then it's a slightly interactive mechanic that takes skill to utilize effectively, and is as such not impossible to balance around.

 

Again that depends on the frequency of occurrence vs. impact. You can roll a 100 and crit on a basic attack, then try to use your one Gaze of an Adragan, roll a 5 and miss.. Luck is part of pillars, sometimes it has a low impact, sometimes a big one. Why invest in perception you might say, while still being able to miss?

 

 

Let's say you have 18 resolve and the encounter takes 40 seconds, every 5 seconds you do an action:

(40s - 10s) / 5s = 6 actions that might get empowered. 18 resolve means 24% chance of empower: Likelihood of and least one empower: 1 - (1 - 0.24)^6 = 81%

 

So it is likely to happen in a fight, while being unlikely to happen for your favorite spells. But if you can't rely on your favorite spell to crit or even hit at all, I don't see how this is somehow resulting in more wildly varying results. After all a +5 PL buff to a spell is just a nice buff, not really more impactful than a crit.

 

Now the profit for martial classes wouldn't be enormous, but since every class uses tons of abilities certainly there. Combined with the deflection bonus it is useful for paladins healing and using FoD, or tanky fighters using knockdowns. Much more at least then the current resolve

[Enduin]

I really don't like the Resolve/Empower idea as well as it basically offers the player nothing actionable or substantive to interact and engage with. It's a thing that exists out there and that may or may not trigger to their benefit or detriment with little influence from them and very little impact on the rest of the game. It doesn't add any real depth or nuance to combat and the overall experience, it simply exists to try and bolster Resolve as an Attribute which lacks purpose and to try to improve the Empower mechanic, which it doesn't actually have anything to do with. As I've posted in two other threads on this already, I would prefer Obsidian to instead rework the Injury system and have Resolve directly impact that to add more depth and Risk/Reward to that system as a staple of combat, thus making Resolve a more meaningful and present Attribute at the same time.

 

Right now the Injury system works as a purely punitive system with little nuance or depth to it in the larger gameplay. You trigger a Trap or get Knocked out in combat, both somewhat uncommon to rare occurrences for many people, and the fact that we have a 3 injury limit, with the 4 resulting in Perma death, means it's something few people will actually let accumulate. So for the vast majority of players you'll see two outcomes: 1) reloading saves to redo combat to avoid knockouts or to avoid traps, or 2) resorting to resting immediately anytime someone acquires an Injury. The new Food system for resting is an interesting mechanic and one I very much am happy with over the old Camping Supplies, but the way Injuries work I don't see Food consumption and related bonuses side of it as enough of a deterrent to immediately resting upon Injury. Few people will actually carry on with a party member having 1 or 2 Injuries. And to me that's a really boring system, as it doesn't provide any real Risk/Reward behavior because the occurrence is still rather low and the penalty is too high. You get an Injury and you either Reload your save or Rest to remove it.

 

So to me a simple solution would be to add more depth to the Injury system by making it more common in normal play. Create two types of Injuries, Major and Minor. Major Injuries would act much like the current system, 4 = Perma-death, more substantial penalties, but the player would only be able to recover from them at an Inn, not through Resting and Food consumption in the field.  But the upside is they would become more rare as the main thing would now be Minor Injuries. These Minor Injuries would be acquirable in normal combat as the result of Crits or High DMG attacks, 8 = Perma Death upon Knockout, but they would carry lighter penalties compared to Major Injuries. These Minor Injuries though could be recovered through Resting and Food consumption in the field. And then when Knocked Out or hit with a Trap a dice roll will be made to determine whether you receive a Major or Minor Injury. 

 

Resolve would play into this as it would directly impact the outcome of these Injury rolls. Every point Above/Below 10 Resolve would provide +/-X% to the chance to the dice roll that determines if you receive a Minor Injury in combat when hit with a Crit and whether you receive a Major or Minor Injury when Knocked Out or hit with a Trap. An additional/alternative to this would be to have Resolve also reduce/increase the penalties of Injuries. Personally I would prefer the former or both, but not just the latter, but it is an option.

 

To me this setup makes Injuries a far more present and interesting mechanic that players will actually have to interact with, manage and think about, along with resource management of food for resting now that Injuries would be far more common making the prospects of resting every time someone is Injured far less realistic. That said this setup would still be something players could actually influence directly and take steps and develop strategies to mitigate. Resolve would be the first such step to help boost the odds in their favor and potentially decrease the penalties of said Injuries, making it a more attractive Attribute and not simply one they can dump without much impact, as well as just all the other myriad of ways they have to develop their characters via equipment, armor, buffs, etc to protect them from Crits/Knockouts along with their overall tactics and strategy during combat to help shield their more vulnerable characters. Instead of Injuries being a near automatic trigger to reload or immediately Rest, it becomes a system that players will have to come to live with and manage in a strategic and thoughtful manner. 

 

Issue here is that this is potentially a rather large change that has rippling effects elsewhere in the game. Needing to rework and re-balance Injury penalties and the whole dice roll associated with how they are acquired, as well as re-balancing food distribution and whether the current pricing and availability is adequate or too limited to what you'll see players use, even after adjusting to the new system and realizing they can't constantly rest. But I think it's a worthwhile change that would help both the Injury/Resting systems out a lot as well as make Resolve a much more attractive and meaningful stat for all classes.

[Novem]

Again that depends on the frequency of occurrence vs. impact. You can roll a 100 and crit on a basic attack, then try to use your one Gaze of an Adragan, roll a 5 and miss.. Luck is part of pillars, sometimes it has a low impact, sometimes a big one. Why invest in perception you might say, while still being able to miss?

 

 

Let's say you have 18 resolve and the encounter takes 40 seconds, every 5 seconds you do an action:

(40s - 10s) / 5s = 6 actions that might get empowered. 18 resolve means 24% chance of empower: Likelihood of and least one empower: 1 - (1 - 0.24)^6 = 81%

 

So it is likely to happen in a fight, while being unlikely to happen for your favorite spells. But if you can't rely on your favorite spell to crit or even hit at all, I don't see how this is somehow resulting in more wildly varying results. After all a +5 PL buff to a spell is just a nice buff, not really more impactful than a crit.

 

Now the profit for martial classes wouldn't be enormous, but since every class uses tons of abilities certainly there. Combined with the deflection bonus it is useful for paladins healing and using FoD, or tanky fighters using knockdowns. Much more at least then the current resolve

 

 

I don't think that argument works, because when you make an attack you have the ability to weigh your chances of hitting, and whether you miss or crit the impact and it's effect on combat is clear, relatively consistent, not too overpowering, and predictable. Random empowers would not be, because it's totally dependent on whether the skill that gets empowered is actually useful to empower or not. Either way, that's not an argument for introducing another element of randomness to combat where it doesn't belong. The game isn't so uninteresting that it needs another layer of randomness to play around, especially one that's so completely volatile from a balancing perspective. It's also not interactive and doesn't impact the way in which you play the game, so what exactly is the purpose?

Edited February 27, 2018 by Novem

[wahmann1]

I don't like the idea of random empower because I think high RES should increase stability and predictability, but random odds for a "Losing your Cool" affliction whenever you get damaged or afflicted (as long as your RES is negative) seems fine. Maybe even an increase to "Freaking Out" major affliction if you are already Losing your Cool and lose it again.

 

Another thought would be to start with one empower per character in the empower pool, recharge the empower pool based on aggregate RES of the party, have a (probably long) cool-down to use empower for each character that is sped up with high RES, and maybe even set the maximum number of times you can empower per rest to 0 + 1 per 4 RES over 2 for each character if OBS doesn't do away with this artifact of the per-rest system entirely at some point (in which case you could make it some maximum number of times per encounter).

[CENIC]

Josh posted on Tumblr about the suggestion for RES to reduce the duration of afflictions:

 

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/171380084061/one-resolve-suggestion-i-think-you/

 

 

One resolve suggestion I think you misunderstood/missed on the forums - reduce duration of hostile effects applied. Universally desirable, can compensate partially for poor defenses, fits the idea of resolve, avoids adding even more RNG and random crit spikes (resolve granting random empowers, which also necessitates making manual empowers half as strong)

No, I didn’t miss or misunderstand it. I think it has more problems than people are considering. It’s overlapping into the space governed by defenses themselves and doesn’t scale well due to it being a percentage reduction that needs 30 points of “growth” on the positive (i.e. above 10) scale.

 

Intellect can continue to scale its duration bonus up in 5% chunks because even after it hits 30 (20 points over 10, +100%) it can always increase more. If Resolve were a percentage reduction, it would need to increment by 3% per point to avoid topping out before 40. At 5% per point, you would hit 100% reduction at 30 and you’ve run out of runway.

 

5% per point is potent, but almost everything connected to attributes in Pillars is symmetrical, so what works on party members would also work on enemies. Would you want to fight enemies who spike a basic tier 1 Resolve Inspiration and chop (an additional) 25% off all incoming effect durations? If the enemy started with a 15 Resolve, it would cut all incoming effect durations in half. Worse, if the enemy started with a 20 Resolve, the easily-attainable 25 would cut them by 75%. A 10s Paralyze becomes a 2.5s Paralyze.

 

Is 3% reduction per point enough? At 15 you’d have 15% reduction. At 20, 30% reduction. At 30, 60% reduction. Maxed out at 40, 90% reduction. On the lower end, a 5 Resolve would increase hostile durations by 15%.

 

Is 2% reduction per point enough? At 15, 10%. At 20, 20%. At 30, 40%. At 40, 60%. A 5 Resolve would increase hostile durations by 10%.

 

Whatever the scale is, it would naturally place a heavier emphasis on Intellect (because you are inherently countering additional reduction) and require balancing base hostile durations (only) around the reality that hostile effect durations (only) are adjusted both by the attack result and by Resolve.

Honestly, the 2% reduction per point sounds good enough to me. Assuming STR changes back to MIG, 2% reduction in affliction duration would achieve the goal of making RES more appealing than it was before.

Edited February 28, 2018 by CENIC

[hilfazer]

Maybe now people will stop making that "RES should affect Affliction duration" suggestion and instead suggest something else that has a chance to be accepted by Obsidian.

 

Let's not waste time on something Josh has already discarded.