Is the regular graze really needed?

[Clean&Clear]

When the backer beta first hit, there was no graze on regular attacks, graze was a special property on some skills and abilities. In the first update, the graze on regular attacks was brought back. I think this change was a bit rushed and it wasn't really discussed in relation to combat speed, so I would like to talk about it a bit more.

 

One criticism I have about PoE 1 combat is that it feels too busy, and I think it's mainly because of grazes. The constant hitting of everything makes it chaotic and hard to read. Also grazes imo don't feel rewarding at all, I very much prefer to miss more often, but to know that when I do hit the opponent, it makes an impact. 

 

With all the talk on combat speed, I think removing graze from autoattacks would also help this a lot. The lower dps output of characters would allow for shorter recovery times, because as many have said, watching your characters just doing nothing in combat doesn't feel very good. Even with shorter recovery times, the combat would feel less busy because of less hitting, while also feeling more rewarding, because your party would look more active. As a bonus, combat encounters could generally last a bit longer with this change, which would be good, because combat tends to be over too quickly imo.

 

I really liked how graze was a special property in the first beta, it was just another thing to make abilities diverse.

 

Knowing that it might be too late to make changes like this for final release, I think it's still worth discussing for future updates/DLC. What do you guys think?

 

 

[Wormerine]

I think it could work both ways. I don't mind grazes and I am not sure how more attacks in shorter amount of time would make things more readable - whenever it is a hit/graze/miss/or crit results still need to be analyzed.

beta1 was awful. I think we either have grazes or we don't have them at all. The reason is: grazes are powerful. The problem the 1st beta had was that dire blessing was just too good to pass. Half damage is still good (especially on AoE attack) and is super good if its a debuff. Any ability which grants you a graze was a must have. Didn't fighters get grazes as well? A multiclass fighter/wizard would be simply better than pure wizard in hitting spells.

 

It seems there were (are?) more people who share your opinion and that's why Obsidian removed grazes. In the way it was implimented it didn't feel good and I much prefer the current system. Is it the best as it could have been? eh, I dunno, probably not. But I can't think of an easy fix.

[MaxQuest]

What do you guys think?

If we took the current [beta3] and compared it with [beta3_with_no_grazes_at_all] I would take the first option hands down, because the miss-rate of crowd-control effects (vs target with same def as your acc) would be disgustingly high for my taste.

 

Sure, accuracy could be globally increased by 25 (so the missrate would be the same as now). But all damage sources would have to be toned down to compensate. Also it would result in +1 acc per 1 perception bringing less benefit. And PER would have to be adjusted as well.

 

the combat would feel less busy because of less hitting, while also feeling more rewarding, because your party would look more active

I'm kinda ok with the current level of uhm busy'ness. At the same time I'm recalling my dps-characters from beta1 which were unable to graze, and have to say: their constant misses were mildly annoying.

But again, I just like more reliability, and would not want to miss with a crucial charm or fireball.

[Veevoir]

I'd agree that what we have now in beta 3 may not be perfect - but the pacing of combat is much better than PoE1 and it feels much more 'clean'. I recently replayed PoE1 and honestly - on any more important combat it was in permanent slow mode. Beta feels fine with normal speed.

Removing grazes could unintentionally slow it down too much. Also, see MaxQuest answer - that is quite a re-balancing act a month before release.

[bleedthefreak]

Also we have no idea how anything works anymore - there has been so much shown to be vastly different in tweats that everything in the beta is completely suspect. It's useless to even speculate at this point, so far removed from what the game must currently look/feel like.

[Madscientist]

I think they shoul keep grazes.

It feels terrible when your attacks miss most of the time, especially after a long cast.

I like that you have more/normal/less (aka crit/hit/graze) effect depending on your roll.

You can still miss if your acc is too low or if you have a bad roll.

[Clean&Clear]

If we took the current [beta3] and compared it with [beta3_with_no_grazes_at_all] I would take the first option hands down, because the miss-rate of crowd-control effects (vs target with same def as your acc) would be disgustingly high for my taste.

 

It feels terrible when your attacks miss most of the time, especially after a long cast.

 

You could easily make some, or even all spells be able to graze, or just give them an even higher acc bonus than they already have. It's mostly autoattack grazes that make it feel too cluttered in PoE1. 

 

Also we have no idea how anything works anymore - there has been so much shown to be vastly different in tweats that everything in the beta is completely suspect. It's useless to even speculate at this point, so far removed from what the game must currently look/feel like.

 

Yeah, we don't know much atm, hopefully the next beta will arrive soon.

 

 

Edited March 22, 2018 by Clean&Clear

[Logos]

I like grazes. There is nothing as frustrating as missing. The only thing more frustrating than missing is watching your character do nothing for four seconds and then miss. I understand that action speed is required to balance combat, so I realize that that cannot be changed much, but I think grazes are an elegant solution to the problem of misses. I also don't think individual characters standing still is that big of a deal, because with a party of five you get a steady supply of screen shakes and impact sounds every .3 seconds or so. There's always something going on. The only time it ever became an issue for me was when I had an all-firearm party. If the battle wasn't over after the first salvo, waiting around could get pretty bad.

 

I also disagree that combat felt too busy in PoE. If anything, I think it felt too slow, and I welcome the change of allowing fast mode in combat in PoE2. I've been replaying PoE recently and going through the endless paths, having to wait at the end of combat for the characters to change states from in combat to out of combat and the game clock from normal mode to fast mode became extremely aggravating, so much so that I would intentionally rush to the next battle at the end of a fight - still hurt and with resources spent - just to not have to go through it again. Allowing fast mode in combat will go a long way towards removing the feeling your characters are stuck in mud at the end of combat.

[FreeKaner]

Certain abilities and spells, especially aoe spells should graze. Everything else should not, especially not regular attacks. 

[Dr <3]

Imho the whole graze mechanich is a great improvement over other systems ( es: bg2 ) where spell can only hit or miss ( and in late game, where everything have absurdly low saves, just miss every time, so you are forced to use only spell without "saves negates" or stack a lot of greater malisons).

With graze you always have a chance to *at least* have a shorter effect duration

[Boeroer]

Miss/graze/hit/crit was a great step forward. Can't understand why people wouldn't like it.

[anameforobsidian]

Miss/graze/hit/crit was a great step forward. Can't understand why people wouldn't like it.

 

In general I agree, but for CC effects grazes were too powerful and that colored some people's perception of them.  In the original, on some things like auras, grazes pretty much mean guaranteed hits unless there's a huge stat disparity.  The lack of longterm spells made keeping up an anti-fear aura on dragons annoying rather than challenging.

[JerekKruger]

Miss/graze/hit/crit was a great step forward. Can't understand why people wouldn't like it.

 

Agreed!