[POTD Difficulty] Launch NOT tuned discussion thread

[PizzaSHARK]

 

 

I actually like per rest and attrition gameplay. It forces you to be as clean as possible, it's a motivation and a reward system to how well you perform in every fight. A per encounter system makes every encounter pointless because it reduces the result to a binary win or lose the encounter withouth "by how much you won" result. It also makes trivial fights feel way more trivial and a chore, since you know beforehand that you won't lose any resource to clean it up and you will move forward effortlessly to your next encounter. What you and me call tedious are different things. Tedious for me is to have to do a big number of things that are completely pointless (most fights with a per encounter system or a big number of loading screens to replenish resources), the first one no matter how much you change the numbers will continue to be the same, the second one atleast gives me an incentive to play better.

 

It is a problem that is exharcebated by how the game currently works, i play a fanatic, i pretty much one shot everything with FoD (since the beginning of the game).

 

Rest and attrition gameplay are clearly not what they're designing for, though.  That's kind of the point - it's a vestigial d20 feature that they don't seem to be willing to just cut off and be rid of.  They'd have to rewrite more than half the game to make attrition-based gameplay relevant again.

That's beside the point. You said it was tedious, i explained why that's completely subjective rather than factual.

 

 

It's factually tedious.  You, in fact, reinforced this by explaining how little resting matters - even if that wasn't your intended objective.

Edited May 29, 2018 by PizzaSHARK

[Purudaya]

 

The game would need to be restructured a bit for the resting mechanic to work out.  For now you can rest pretty much infinitely with zero repercussions other than losing some food. 

 

Resting should allow you to eat more food, but it doesn't rid 100% of all ailments and only restores fractions of your abilities. Resting in dangerous areas should have a chance of you getting ambushed. Maybe make it that you need to rest 3 times to fully recover all ailments or make resting have like 35% chance of healing one debilitation out of many you can get, and 30% chance to regain 1 empower charges.

 

Make events that can interrupt resting like stray animals messing with you or getting ganged by wolfs, bandits, assassins, treasure seekers, or simply soldiers who want to loot you, etc. Make some companions events that can reduce the effectiveness of resting. Like if Aloth's awaken soul takes over him when he is sleeping and she messes around, or if your broken wrist made it difficult to rest without ale. 

 

Maybe have areas regenerate some (not all) monsters or NPCs as time passes. The NPCs generated doesn't need to be same ones that was native to the area. It could be troops sent there to check who murdered everyone, looting bandits or mercenaries, scavenging carnivorous animals, or spirits from those slaughtered. 

 

 

Definitely shouldn't be able to rest a screen away from a bunch of baddies without any chance of ambush.  Doesn't make a lick of sense. 

 

 

This is the main thing that bothers me. It would be more immersive (even if it wouldn't do much for strategy) to at least restrict rest to maps without active enemies on them. Cleared dungeon levels, inns, the ship, the on-foot map, etc.

[lpro]

I'm not sure why you're using level 20 as an example.  You should be using level 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.  Or do you think the entire game is designed and balanced around level 20 gameplay, and the player starts at level 20?

Because my latest save was level 20 and I loaded it to rebut you...

 

I loaded at level 12 and yeah, my observations were basically still true -- spellcasters had a much larger spell pool and were able to cast a larger number of abilities. for wizard it is obvious why this is true -- they learn two abilities automatically per PL through their grimoire giving them a free hand to select two different abilities. Priest, likewise, learns one ability through PL just through their deity. 

 

I don't need to prove that the situation is always true at every level because it is built into the way that spellcaster mechanics work. Martials have a more limited number of different abilities but can spam the same abilities more often until their pool is depleted -- spellcasters have a larger pool of abilities but a stricter hard limit on the number of casts per PL per encounter (excepting Cipher which has a different mechanic). Evidently spellcasters will be using a greater number of spells and also access a more varied repertoire. Your complaint can only be that some of those spells aren't wonderful and so the admittedly much larger toolbox is meaningless, but that is not about per encounter mechanics but about some spells being bad. or you might still be arguing that spellcasters have less versatility than in POE1; fine, though there were plenty of useless spells then too. But it's not true that spellcasters are more limited in their situation-specific options than martials. I just offered a counterexample of martials that have some good abilities but largely run out of their pool in seconds (Rogues) or don't even have interesting abilities (Ranger). Rebut the argument, or clarify your point. 

Edited May 29, 2018 by lpro

[flamesium]

My first run was on Veteran and I enjoyed it. I started a second run on PotD but it becomes trivial once you have a few levels.

 

I think the balance is so ridiculously far off (did they test at all?) that it's not really something they can just handwave away and get to it when they get to it.

 

They can do a more nuanced balance pass at their leisure, but in the very short term a quick and dirty patch just adding 3 levels to every enemy in PotD would be a significant improvement.

[Rumpelstilskin]

One of the reasons, side comment, that cyphers could be great, but aren't - those charm, stun, domination powers could be game changers, but it's not the focus of the character. 

right, because focus is the focus of cyphers. still, i found charms very useful with high enough accuracy (and speed). there are quick and cheap 'emergency' charms, and heavier ones you can spam while ascended. 

[cokane]

I actually like per rest and attrition gameplay. It forces you to be as clean as possible, it's a motivation and a reward system to how well you perform in every fight. A per encounter system makes every encounter pointless because it reduces the result to a binary win or lose the encounter withouth "by how much you won" result. It also makes trivial fights feel way more trivial and a chore, since you know beforehand that you won't lose any resource to clean it up and you will move forward effortlessly to your next encounter. What you and me call tedious are different things. Tedious for me is to have to do a big number of things that are completely pointless (most fights with a per encounter system or a big number of loading screens to replenish resources), the first one no matter how much you change the numbers will continue to be the same, the second one atleast gives me an incentive to play better.

 

It is a problem that is exharcebated by how the game currently works, i play a fanatic, i pretty much one shot everything with FoD (since the beginning of the game).

 

Well said. One problem with dumping almost all of the consequences of combat, is that the game now has to have a stricter balance in order to actually provide a challenge. Previously, players could challenge themselves by simply pushing their party further and further without resting. I think in the long run, the decision to focus the combat mechanics on per encounter abilities will come to be seen as a mistake. The designers have essentially backed themselves into a corner. Combat encounters are now basically either the save/reload risk from the most difficult battles or... just a chore that players, once they have experience with the systems, can solve in rote fashion, again and again and again.

 

Secondly, refreshing every characters' skills after every combat has resulted in a sort of economic inflation where it's simply not worth exploring much of the other options in the game. Why bother with crafting potions, scrolls, and explosives when your guys have more than a dozen per combat core abilities available in every fight? There's a finite number of actions in every fight, and as you level up, you simply do not need to every touch any of the ancillary systems and skills available. It's a deeply unfortunate design, and I think as the game ages, more and more players will realize that this system actually results in a lack of good options for the player, even though it initially provided the illusion of fewer restrictions.

Edited May 29, 2018 by cokane

[InsaneCommander]

The 1.1 Beta is out. Notice that they are not listing all the changes (over 1.000):

 

 

https://steamcommunity.com/games/560130/announcements/detail/1657768283115606492

 

 

[shadow85]

Well theres a start to better PotD to come.

 

But still waiting till there is a thorough fix to it. Until then Obsidian, my money stays in my pocket.

[JFutral]

Well theres a start to better PotD to come.

 

But still waiting till there is a thorough fix to it. Until then Obsidian, my money stays in my pocket.

 

Wait. So you're saying you haven't actually played the game and you are basing this on hearsay even though there are an abundant number of posters who enjoy the game? You don't actually know how hard PotD really is or isn't?

 

Hmm.

Joe

[Guest Jamila]

 

 

 

I don't think you understand.  I'm not saying casters are weak (aside from Priests, who are basically brought for Devotions and that's it), I'm saying that they are vastly more limited than martials because they no longer have a whole toolbox of things to work with and that negatively impacts encounter design possibilities.

 

 

Nope. Single-class Wizard at lvl 20 will be able to decide between around 40 spells before swapping grimoires. For ex., Aloth had a pool of 39 different spells . With two named grimoires in his quick item slots he could cast almost every good wizard spell. He could use 17 spells before empowering his pool -- 23 by equipping the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry (8,000 cp).*

 

How is 20+ spells per encounter out of a pool of 40+ spells not a 'toolbox'?

Because on every tier you either pick spells that are usable under most circumstances or that tier's casts are wasted, and then if you pick such generally usable spell on given tier, there is no point in picking another, more niche spell, especially if you can pick some useful passive instead (admittedly, single class wizard/priest do not have many), because you will most likely want to cast that generally usable spell anyway and will not have spare casts for the more niche spell even under circumstances it would be usable.  So actual number of tools in a toolbox roughly equals number of tiers. I would pick 0-1 spells per tier with priest/druid and 0 with wizard, because otherwise wizard should respec every time grimoire overlaps with learned spells, or he is wasting skill point.

 

Compare with chanters or ciphers, who can spend their resources on spells from any tier, they can pick up 3-4 spells from single tier and use all of them multiple times in single encounter, skip some tiers completely or make up their toolbox entirely from relatively niche spells and just use whatever fits situation.

 

Not that current spell system is entirely bad, I think it partially contributes to the fact that fights are more drawn out, which I like (in PoE 1, even hard fights ended too quickly and were basically decided within the first few spell casts), but wizards/priests/druids could have more leeway with spell casts. Perhaps being able to spend their higher tier casts on lower tier spells or something like that.

[PizzaSHARK]

 

Well theres a start to better PotD to come.

 

But still waiting till there is a thorough fix to it. Until then Obsidian, my money stays in my pocket.

 

Wait. So you're saying you haven't actually played the game and you are basing this on hearsay even though there are an abundant number of posters who enjoy the game? You don't actually know how hard PotD really is or isn't?

 

Hmm.

Joe

 

 

There's also a sizable number of posters that have severe issues with the game.  It's not hard to then draw the conclusion that the game may not be worth buying in its current state, especially given how Pillars went from "kinda ****ty" on launch to "pretty okay" by the end of the White March DLC cycle.

[JFutral]

 

 

Well theres a start to better PotD to come.

 

But still waiting till there is a thorough fix to it. Until then Obsidian, my money stays in my pocket.

 

Wait. So you're saying you haven't actually played the game and you are basing this on hearsay even though there are an abundant number of posters who enjoy the game? You don't actually know how hard PotD really is or isn't?

 

Hmm.

Joe

 

 

There's also a sizable number of posters that have severe issues with the game.  It's not hard to then draw the conclusion that the game may not be worth buying in its current state, especially given how Pillars went from "kinda ****ty" on launch to "pretty okay" by the end of the White March DLC cycle.

 

I like that "sizable". Keeps it ambiguous enough as to not commit to "overwhelming" but makes it sound substantial. I can find people who don't like just about anything for just about any number of reasons. If the overwhelming posts were complaints and the consensus was that it sucks, the position of "I ain't buyin'" might have more merit. It's just ridiculous to not buy something based on a subjective, yet most vocal, of opinions.

 

That said, I will take a whole lot more seriously the people who have purchased the game and THEN complained than someone who sits on the sidelines and gripes. Like I've said before, my daughter didn't get to complain about some food until she at least tasted it first.

 

But, THAT said, I do long for the days when there was a such thing as demo versions of games. I guess, however, that probably takes almost as much effort to develop and support as the full game.

 

Anyway, I just think posting negatively about a game you haven't played is a waste of bandwidth and energy.

 

Joe

[PizzaSHARK]

 

 

 

Well theres a start to better PotD to come.

 

But still waiting till there is a thorough fix to it. Until then Obsidian, my money stays in my pocket.

 

Wait. So you're saying you haven't actually played the game and you are basing this on hearsay even though there are an abundant number of posters who enjoy the game? You don't actually know how hard PotD really is or isn't?

 

Hmm.

Joe

 

 

There's also a sizable number of posters that have severe issues with the game.  It's not hard to then draw the conclusion that the game may not be worth buying in its current state, especially given how Pillars went from "kinda ****ty" on launch to "pretty okay" by the end of the White March DLC cycle.

 

I like that "sizable". Keeps it ambiguous enough as to not commit to "overwhelming" but makes it sound substantial. I can find people who don't like just about anything for just about any number of reasons. If the overwhelming posts were complaints and the consensus was that it sucks, the position of "I ain't buyin'" might have more merit. It's just ridiculous to not buy something based on a subjective, yet most vocal, of opinions.

 

That said, I will take a whole lot more seriously the people who have purchased the game and THEN complained than someone who sits on the sidelines and gripes. Like I've said before, my daughter didn't get to complain about some food until she at least tasted it first.

 

But, THAT said, I do long for the days when there was a such thing as demo versions of games. I guess, however, that probably takes almost as much effort to develop and support as the full game.

 

Anyway, I just think posting negatively about a game you haven't played is a waste of bandwidth and energy.

 

Joe

 

 

My point is that there are enough comments in either direction that you can reasonably make the conclusion that the game may have some significant problems.  As it turns out, it does - though whether those problems are significant enough to make the game not worth buying will vary from person to person.  The larger problem is that a game like Deadfire may take several hours before you realize it's not really what you were hoping for - long past the point you can reasonably expect Steam to give you the money back.