Combat is now mostly a dull chore

[geala]

Thankfully they did. The ability per encounter system is better suited for difficulty balance, it is more predictable. I got the feeling that a lot of the PoE1 "restriction system" love comes from playthroughs with the knowledge of the encounters from earlier runs.

 

I like the new system more, although the "healing wounds" play is much too easy. They could have used it for severe pressure. You shouldn't be able to heal your dented skull and ripped open belly by chewing a hardtack, any time and as often as you like.

[Stephen Unsworth-Mitchell]

Thankfully they did. The ability per encounter system is better suited for difficulty balance, it is more predictable. I got the feeling that a lot of the PoE1 "restriction system" love comes from playthroughs with the knowledge of the encounters from earlier runs.

 

I like the new system more, although the "healing wounds" play is much too easy. They could have used it for severe pressure. You shouldn't be able to heal your dented skull and ripped open belly by chewing a hardtack, any time and as often as you like.

 

How is per encounter more predictable for difficulty balance when your in open world can go any where. 

 

How is it better when the game has to be easy enough for the majority, not balanced for any group other then majority as it has to suit most people and that generally makes game easier because company doesn't want to lose money and customers.

 

Therefore anyone likes challenge won't find it and need create artificial difficulty balance it to there level.

 

Before comment but that's what level difficulty is for not so POTD is still balanced for majority that will play at that level does not count those that need more challenge at that level.

 

Per rest has its issues that need addressing I already suggested that best idea is anyone leave dungeon will when returning to dungeon find they have redo some those fights already done and longer you wait go back more bad guys there should be.

[cokane]

Thankfully they did. The ability per encounter system is better suited for difficulty balance, it is more predictable. I got the feeling that a lot of the PoE1 "restriction system" love comes from playthroughs with the knowledge of the encounters from earlier runs.

 

I like the new system more, although the "healing wounds" play is much too easy. They could have used it for severe pressure. You shouldn't be able to heal your dented skull and ripped open belly by chewing a hardtack, any time and as often as you like.

 

This isn't true. It's actually harder to balance the monsters in a per encounter focused system specifically because the developers have a narrower scope to work with. Any failure outside of that scope creates encounters that either 1. do absolutely nothing to challenge the player, i.e. wasting their time, or 2. are virtually impossible at their current level. The second problem, of course, exists equally in both systems. The first problem doesn't, as a chain of weaker encounters can still hold significance in the previous system, but not in Deadfire.

[PizzaSHARK]

 

Thankfully they did. The ability per encounter system is better suited for difficulty balance, it is more predictable. I got the feeling that a lot of the PoE1 "restriction system" love comes from playthroughs with the knowledge of the encounters from earlier runs.

 

I like the new system more, although the "healing wounds" play is much too easy. They could have used it for severe pressure. You shouldn't be able to heal your dented skull and ripped open belly by chewing a hardtack, any time and as often as you like.

 

This isn't true. It's actually harder to balance the monsters in a per encounter focused system specifically because the developers have a narrower scope to work with. Any failure outside of that scope creates encounters that either 1. do absolutely nothing to challenge the player, i.e. wasting their time, or 2. are virtually impossible at their current level. The second problem, of course, exists equally in both systems. The first problem doesn't, as a chain of weaker encounters can still hold significance in the previous system, but not in Deadfire.

 

 

More directly, in a per-encounter system every single encounter is completely binary - either it's a TPK, or the player wins.  As a result, "trash" encounters are COMPLETELY POINTLESS because they aren't ever going to be challenging enough to result in a TPK, and anything that isn't a TPK in this system is a wash.  So you either remove the trash encounters, leaving very large, very empty dungeons.  Or you change every encounter to be tough enough to result in a TPK, in which case you're likely going to result in massive amounts of player fatigue - think of it if you were playing the Long War mod for XCOM Enemy Within, and instead of going back to base and spending some minutes fiddling with your strategic elements, kind of giving your mind a rest from the more intense tactical action... you just go immediately right into another tactical battle section.  Or think of an FPS without moments for the player to "catch their breath."

 

Honestly, I think attrition-based systems are a lot easier to design and a lot more forgiving of design flaws.  Doing per-encounter without an actual DM to adjust things on the fly sounds like an exercise in frustration on both ends.

[Gairnulf]

In reply to the OP - PoE was equally lacking challenge with its rest system, unless the player instituted some house rules regarding resting and backtracking. For example, I would restart combat on a knocked down party member, or abstain from resting until a character's health bar turned red.

 

In Deadfire, we have the effect of every ability being per-encounter, which I like to call "the game rest-spamming for you", because after every fight where you had no KO's, all your resources are replenished as if you've just rested.

 

I will play Deadfire on Veteran with scaling only upwards, and with a no KO's house rule (at least when I'm not too frustrated to break it), but if it's still too easy, my answer is - modding.

 

Any ability can be turned into a per-rest one by just editing its data. This alone would make the game much more interesting and force the player to conserve abilities, unless he is ok with resting after every encounter.

[Purudaya]

 

 

Thankfully they did. The ability per encounter system is better suited for difficulty balance, it is more predictable. I got the feeling that a lot of the PoE1 "restriction system" love comes from playthroughs with the knowledge of the encounters from earlier runs.

 

I like the new system more, although the "healing wounds" play is much too easy. They could have used it for severe pressure. You shouldn't be able to heal your dented skull and ripped open belly by chewing a hardtack, any time and as often as you like.

 

This isn't true. It's actually harder to balance the monsters in a per encounter focused system specifically because the developers have a narrower scope to work with. Any failure outside of that scope creates encounters that either 1. do absolutely nothing to challenge the player, i.e. wasting their time, or 2. are virtually impossible at their current level. The second problem, of course, exists equally in both systems. The first problem doesn't, as a chain of weaker encounters can still hold significance in the previous system, but not in Deadfire.

 

 

More directly, in a per-encounter system every single encounter is completely binary - either it's a TPK, or the player wins.  As a result, "trash" encounters are COMPLETELY POINTLESS because they aren't ever going to be challenging enough to result in a TPK, and anything that isn't a TPK in this system is a wash.  So you either remove the trash encounters, leaving very large, very empty dungeons.  Or you change every encounter to be tough enough to result in a TPK, in which case you're likely going to result in massive amounts of player fatigue - think of it if you were playing the Long War mod for XCOM Enemy Within, and instead of going back to base and spending some minutes fiddling with your strategic elements, kind of giving your mind a rest from the more intense tactical action... you just go immediately right into another tactical battle section.  Or think of an FPS without moments for the player to "catch their breath."

 

Honestly, I think attrition-based systems are a lot easier to design and a lot more forgiving of design flaws.  Doing per-encounter without an actual DM to adjust things on the fly sounds like an exercise in frustration on both ends.

 

 

PoE2 technically is still an attrition-based system, just via wounds as opposed to abilities/health. By adding some restrictions on how players rest (either by area, adding tangible debuffs to -morale foods, only restoring empower points when resting at ships/inns, or increasing resource costs - which needs to be done to balance the economy anyway), it would still be very possible to make the current wound system more relevant. I'm personally looking forward to the upcoming "Magran's Fires" feature - hopefully it will add some thoughtful mechanical options to allow players to better adjust this aspect of the gameplay to their preferred playstyle. 

[cokane]

 

PoE2 technically is still an attrition-based system, just via wounds as opposed to abilities/health. By adding some restrictions on how players rest (either by area, adding tangible debuffs to -morale foods, only restoring empower points when resting at ships/inns, or increasing resource costs - which needs to be done to balance the economy anyway), it would still be very possible to make the current wound system more relevant. I'm personally looking forward to the upcoming "Magran's Fires" feature - hopefully it will add some thoughtful mechanical options to allow players to better adjust this aspect of the gameplay to their preferred playstyle. 

 

 

I agree with much of this. While I don't think the current system can hit the heights of combat complexity that the White March did, due to removing per rest spells, all is not lost.

 

I think more encounters that risk wounding characters + making resting more expensive + making more diverse empower usage could result in a significantly improved combat experience.

 

One other thing I wanted to add, is that not only are monster encounters forced to fit into a more narrow window, but now, so are skills. We're seeing the beginnings of this in the upcoming patch notes. But because wizard/priest/druid spellcasting ability has been greatly inflated, now their spells are going to have to be less powerful. Again, severely downsizing the per encounter options means that you are going to have a narrower range of skills in your party, in addition to dungeons having to offer a narrower range of types of combat. That's just how it has to be when almost every skill is refreshed after every single combat.

[ThacoBell]

 

Thankfully they did. The ability per encounter system is better suited for difficulty balance, it is more predictable. I got the feeling that a lot of the PoE1 "restriction system" love comes from playthroughs with the knowledge of the encounters from earlier runs.

 

I like the new system more, although the "healing wounds" play is much too easy. They could have used it for severe pressure. You shouldn't be able to heal your dented skull and ripped open belly by chewing a hardtack, any time and as often as you like.

 

This isn't true. It's actually harder to balance the monsters in a per encounter focused system specifically because the developers have a narrower scope to work with. Any failure outside of that scope creates encounters that either 1. do absolutely nothing to challenge the player, i.e. wasting their time, or 2. are virtually impossible at their current level. The second problem, of course, exists equally in both systems. The first problem doesn't, as a chain of weaker encounters can still hold significance in the previous system, but not in Deadfire.

 

Sure they have a purpose. They make the player feel powerful. You also still get exp and loot.

[Guest 4ward]

haven‘t read the whole thread, just wanted to say that as i‘m playing on the potd difficulty it‘s hilarious how many opponents my 5 guys (i have just an imp figurine and no ranger or chanter) are fighting sometimes. As i‘m exploring the old city now i was greeted by something like 20 rothgasts/duls/darghuls or however they‘re called. I‘d rather have fewer enemies with abilities i need to counter. In Bg2 i fail a saving throw and am paralyzed by net, here i simply walk through it. I know people are saying how once you figure out how to beat Kangaxx in BG2 it‘s easy, but he‘s just one guy, if Bioware added a couple gauths things would be different.

[ValveFloat]

 

Think back to PoE1 with the temple below the first village, Gilded Vale. It was one of the first difficult areas many players would encounter, and yet no single fight in that temple is a maximum effort "boss fight". This kind of dungeon crawl cannot exist in Deadfire.

Combat in PoE1 wasn't difficult in a fun way, it was difficult in a chore-ish way, and did not vary much, the only difficult fights were those that relied on dazing or confusing characters and literally just spammed those effects. And or just bypassing fighters to kill off all off your spellcasters/healers.

 

Everything else was easy, and even on the next to hardest difficulty level I never had to rely on food/potions/scrolls, my party members just chopped right on through everything all on their own.

 

I do not find countering dazed effects to be fun in any way, there is no strategy to it, and every single things I've read about how people countered it, relied on cheesing the game mechanics and getting off the confusion or daze effects first yourself..and spamming them to win.

 

That is exceptionally boring compared to games like BG2, where positioning your characters matters, protecting weak characters actually resulted in them living, and spells/effects had counters that worked in a logical way and for more than a few seconds.

 

The stench of mmorpg cheese lays far too heavily on this franchise, which as a backer of the original game, I find very disappointing.