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Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

2house2fly

Magister
Joined
Apr 10, 2013
Messages
1,877
Are these MMO style % on hit to cause something really necessary? I know the IE games have something similar, but still. Couldn't it have been something more controlled, like every 10th hit or every 5th or something?
If they did that people would just game it by standing outside the enemies' sight and hitting party members 9 times before starting the fight. Then they would complain that they are "forced" to play that way
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
High impact low chance procs on items makes encounters a lot more varied and tests your adaptability. They should add them to some enemies too.

It simply makes killing enemies easier when it procs, I don't know what adaptability is being tested like this.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,660
Are these MMO style % on hit to cause something really necessary? I know the IE games have something similar, but still. Couldn't it have been something more controlled, like every 10th hit or every 5th or something?
People love playing the slots.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,949
Pathfinder: Wrath
If they did that people would just game it by standing outside the enemies' sight and hitting party members 9 times before starting the fight. Then they would complain that they are "forced" to play that way
Just disable the counter on allied hits. I know they can do it because you couldn't hit your party members in PoE1 to level soulbound weapons when you needed to reach a certain damage threshold. Interestingly enough, things like "cause blind 9 times" did work when hitting allies.
 

ScrotumBroth

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2018
Messages
1,288
Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
Pets bonuses are retarded.
They should just have a gameplay changing bonus, even if small. Instead of atribute bonuses that make no sense.

Pets are just part of the RPG evolution Sawyer is pioneering. Stop throwing sticks in the wheel of progress bro.
 

Kyl Von Kull

The Night Tripper
Patron
Joined
Jun 15, 2017
Messages
3,152
Location
Jamrock District
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Are these MMO style % on hit to cause something really necessary? I know the IE games have something similar, but still. Couldn't it have been something more controlled, like every 10th hit or every 5th or something?
People love playing the slots.

What’s the advantage of using a counter system rather than RNG? VD was talking about using token based RNG rather than dice based RNG because too many people don’t understand how randomness works in his latest update, but aside from making outcomes more palatable to the innumerate, I don’t see any benefit.

Over a long enough period of time both systems will give you the same distribution of outcomes, one is just a lot more predictable. And predictability is not super desirable when most of the mechanics are meant to simulate randomness. Plus, we use dice to resolve everything else in RPGs, why not status effects? Maybe it would be better to make it apply 100% of the time but with the status effect having a very low accuracy (although in practice this would give you similar results).

Think of these items like shitty old cars. You keep turning the ignition and eventually it will start on one of those turns, but you will never know why. It’s temperamental machinery.
 

Tigranes

Arcane
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
10,350
I tend to skip the 5% chance of whatever stuff, but Deadfire has plenty of other types, from granting active abilities to weird (and often super-munchkin) possibilities re. things like recovery procs, bouncing arrows and on-near-death hail mary triggers.
 

AwesomeButton

Proud owner of BG 3: Day of Swen's Tentacle
Patron
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Messages
16,156
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At large
PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
All this bitching and whining about nerfs instead of boosts is so retarded. People play 1.0 and that's their reference point. Everything that changes after that is "you broke the game, it was fine", while in reality the balance was already broken in 1.0. Nothing makes 1.0 superior, except in your eyes it's the best because it's the first thing you saw.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
Because I think if you removed all the special items from the game and just played with standard gear, it would still be pretty easy after hitting the level 10-12 threshold. You might move the threshold to say level 12-14, but it would still be there.

IMHO, they would have an easier time moving that threshold by focusing on encounter balance vs a party with standard gear.

Put the special items back into the equation only after you have raised the base difficulty of the game, and then bring out the nerf bat if needed.

How much experience do you have balancing complex cRPGs?

Changing more than one thing at a time means that you can't interpret the results.

Changing one item at a time is almost insignificant. Nerfing or buffing entire categories of items is the way to go if you want to see any difference.
 

Ulfhednar

Savant
Joined
Apr 29, 2017
Messages
809
Location
Valhalla
How much experience do you have balancing complex cRPGs?

Genetic Fallacy - Attacking the origin of an argument is not equivalent to attacking its merit.

Changing one item at a time is almost insignificant. Nerfing or buffing entire categories of items is the way to go if you want to see any difference.

Straw man - The thesis of my argument is that balancing all encounters and then evaluating whether or not items are OP (i.e. isolating variables) would have greater and more predictable returns than trying to balance both encounters and items at the same time. My argument is not, and never has been, that they should try to isolate and make changes to each item individually.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
For whatever reason the PoE fans have chosen Pallegina as the sexualized object instead of Xoti? Hmm. I can go with that.
f1c0d86b29701b79c411a90fe894284f--game-art-pillars-of-eternity.jpg

1518102700382.png
 

Prime Junta

Guest
How much experience do you have balancing complex cRPGs?

Genetic Fallacy - Attacking the origin of an argument is not equivalent to attacking its merit.

But you weren't making an argument. You were stating an opinion regarding a technical matter (how to best balance a cRPG). In my view, expert opinions should be given more weight than layman opinions.

Changing one item at a time is almost insignificant. Nerfing or buffing entire categories of items is the way to go if you want to see any difference.

Straw man - The thesis of my argument is that balancing all encounters and then evaluating whether or not items are OP (i.e. isolating variables) would have greater and more predictable returns than trying to balance both encounters and items at the same time. My argument is not, and never has been, that they should try to isolate and make changes to each item individually.

That's not an argument. It's an opinion. You believe that's the best way to do it. I was wondering if you have any practical experience about that sort of thing, or if you're just theorising.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
I have a project. It's a tabletop RPG. It's a work in progress. It's here http://www.brikoleur.com/
Just go ahead and tell me why I'm wrong...

All I can say is that in my limited experience balancing a game, especially early on, (yeah, that one), it's easier to attack it from both sides at once: if it's too easy, nerf assets and buff challenges. If you only do one or the other, you're likely to get inflated numbers (only buff challenges) or too coarse a scale (only nerf assets).

As I said, it's an opinion -- and mine is by no means an expert one either. (Josh's OTOH is an expert opinion -- he's been doing this kind of shit for 20 years, and that qualifies him as an expert.)
 

hilfazer

Scholar
Joined
Jan 26, 2016
Messages
224
Isn't this how Sawyer usually *balances* stuff? Nerfing or buffing by half and seeing what sticks?

I know they do this at development stage, except buffs are *2 not *1.5.

However, after game is released they are not afraid to /4 or /5 things. In PoE1 Blizzard's slow was /4ed, Sure Handed Ila's reload - /5ed. I wonder where are their testers if they need to make such drastic changes after release.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
However, after game is released they are not afraid to /4 or /5 things. In PoE1 Blizzard's slow was /4ed, Sure Handed Ila's reload - /5ed. I wonder where are their testers if they need to make such drastic changes after release.

Hunting down game- and quest-breaking bugs I have no doubt.

Last game Obsidian released that didn't need a shitload of balance patching was South Park and that was (1) massively delayed due to publisher shenanigans (2) mechanically very simple and (3) easy.
 

ColonelTeacup

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 19, 2017
Messages
1,433
I've always initially thought that the issues for Obsidian were publisher related and Obsidian had no fault, but after the interview thread here with Avellone, and how terribly Obsidian has handled their personal game creations, leads me to believe Obsidian holds more fault with these companies than either party lets on. I would not be surprised if some of the delays for South Park were due to Obsidian as well.
 

Prime Junta

Guest
I would not be surprised if some of the delays for South Park were due to Obsidian as well.

I wonder what these would be though? IIRC the stated reason for the delay was that the publisher went bankrupt and the IP was sold to somebody else. Would Obsidian be able to fuck things up that badly?
 

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