Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Delterius]

Yes, you could do that in NWN2. But since the whole thing was kinda wonky it was still hard to pull off.

 

[Arkeus]

HAHAH just found a way to abuse the shit out of disengagement attacks. Attack enemy with ranged unit and then run that unit back, move a Fighter in to intercept but DO NOT attack the enemy, just move the Fighter close to the enemy and BAM, disengagement attack and THEN attack (no cooldown) :D

Kinda hard to pull off, but you can definitely do it.

You posted this in SA/Obsidian Forums?

 

[Sensuki]

Josh replied to my PM. He basically disagreed with most of my points and gave his reasons, and the ones where he didn't he asked the QA team's opinion and they flat out disagreed with me.

Don't have time to consider his thoughts at the moment got to do some RL stuff so I'll get back on that a bit later today

There were some points where, given the right information that I would be able to make a case however he also made some good points as well.

Spoiler

Hi, Sensuki. Right now I'm trying to focus most of my efforts internally on bugfixing and getting team feedback. That isn't to say that we're not doing any tuning, but we're in a stage right now where I'm trying to temporarily limit outside input. At a high level, my feedback would be that I don't think it would be good to switch to "natural die roll only" for crits for a few reasons. First, it creates a separate type of resolution for attacks, one based on modified die roll and one based on natural die roll. Second, it means that "true" crits and misses are things that the player achieves purely through random chance instead of by pushing the odds in their favor. That's the AD&D style, but I never thought that resolution model was rewarding because it never happened based on me doing something other than rolling the die.

That said, I could see a scenario where crits occur on higher rolls, e.g. 105+, meaning you need more significant Accuracy advantage to even have a chance of pulling them off. Even so, I don't personally think that the Crit system in place causes serious problems. While +50% damage or duration is not trivial, it's also not insanely powerful. In some cases, the Crit exacerbates what is an extant balance problem like a Paralyzed effect with a base 20s duration, which is nuts. In that case, the base effect needs to be modified.

DT can be harder to balance than DR and DT + DR can be even harder, but DR alone has a lot of problems. First, DR-reliant systems cause a huge inflation of damage values as the DR values start to rise and the characters' HP are also rising. Unless you tightly control DR escalation (a problem in its own right) eventually you wind up with armor absorbing 80%+ of incoming damage on massive hits against characters with enormous amounts of HP. In Fallout and F2, DR was the primary component of high end armor and it led to plinking back and forth until someone was hit with an armor-bypassing x3 crit to completely annihilate the target. With DR, you also eventually "run out of runway" in terms of equipment progression. You have 100 points to play with, that's it. Unless the progression is really tightly constrained (in which case you won't notice much change), you will eventually top out where the equipment can go.

Though it's more difficult to balance DT than DR, it's not incredibly hard and in the BB areas I really haven't done much tuning at all. People have moved around creatures and whatnot but I haven't been trying to create the perfectly balanced area or anything. There's another element that can help alleviate some of the pain of low damage vs. a particular DT type, which is to raise Min Dam Through DT to 20%. It's currently 10%, which is half of what it was in F:NV.

I've talked to QA about Dexterity and they completely disagree with it being a dump stat. Its effects are harder to observe but speed is always valuable.

Armored Grace is not the same as an 18 Dexterity because Armored Grace affects Recovery Time, not base speed. Dexterity actually directly affects base speed, which means in turn it affects Recovery Time because RT is derived from the time to perform an action. Weapon Focus grants the same Accuracy bonus as 20 Per to one class of weapons and has no effect on Reflexes. It also stacks, so I don't really see how that creates a problem.

I could see bonus Accuracy from Per going from +1 to +2 and Dam/Heal from +2 to +3, but from +1 to +3 is enormously influential. An 18 would be +21, greater than what you'd get from an 18 on an attack stat in A/D&D (already too high, IMO).

QA also disagrees with you on Intellect, though we're doubling the AoE effect that it has because it was never actually supposed to be 3%, but 5%. After fooling around a bit, 6% seems a bit better. It has a large influence on AoE. While you could argue that classes don't necessarily need huge AoEs for their attacks/spells, watching them dramatically shrink is actually a real problem that they have to deal with.

Interrupts and Concentration need to be communicated better on equipment/attacks and the character sheets since people still don't really make the connection that the basic offensive component comes from the attack.

 

[Goat Vomit]

In your next PM ask him what he thinks about backseat game developing.

 

[MicoSelva]

I agree with Josh on DT. DR has its place in some systems, but it is a big problem in systems where character HP numbers increase multiple times over the course of the game.
Variable DT (as in having a range, not a fixed number, just like weapon damage) will always remain my favourite version though, as it makes combat a bit less perdictable and can serve both to diversify armor types and abstract armor coverage on a person (like plate vs. full plate, chain shirt vs. chain mail, etc.).

 

[Sensuki]

I'm going to PM one of the QA guys (maybe Matt Sheets?) and ask what classes they're picking Dexterity on, and why.

 

[Bester]

Inb4 "Why we pick Dex on rogues ofc. Cause rogues are supposed to be dextrous to steal stuff."

 

[Sensuki]

I am expecting a reply something along those lines, yep.

 

[Infinitron]

I am expecting a reply something along those lines, yep.

His response to you implied that they found the speed improvement valuable.

I hope you're aware that second-guessing his reply and going over his head to talk directly to the QA guys is bordering on the disrespectful

 

[Shannow]

And you wouldn't want to be disrespectful. That'd border on blasphemy...
Sry 'Tron, but that's what you sound like.

Sen, if you want your criticisms to be taken into account, you need to take yourself back some more. I've been following this for a while now and you're exhibiting some of the qualities that have been criticised about Sawyer. Only with much less power on the design, ofc.
'Tron is right in that you'll lose what influence you have, if you antagonize the Obsitards. At least publicly you need to seem more conciliatory. (Just try to think of modding your "vision" into the game at a later date )
And take a break, for FSM's sake. You're putting more effort into this than people who get paid for it. I think a break could help your perspective.

 

[Sensuki]

His response to you implied that they found the speed improvement valuable.

I hope you're aware that second-guessing his reply and going over his head to talk directly to the QA guys is bordering on the disrespectful

I'm not second guessing anything, I simply want to know more. Here is my PM to Matt Sheets:

Hi Matt

I PM'd Josh with my thoughts on a few of the systems, one of those thoughts was that I currently think that Dexterity is a bit of a dump stat for most classes. He said that you guys (QA) completely disagree.

I was just interested in knowing what classes you guys are choosing Dexterity on, and for what reasons - mechanical or otherwise

Cheers
Sensuki

I also informed Josh that I PM'd Matt Sheets in my reply. Now while I stated here that I assume that I might get a reply like the one Bester imagined, it could be that I am missing something.

There is one reason why Dexterity might be better or considered valuable, but I myself can't find any others.

For posterity - here's my reply to Josh's PM

Spoiler

The reasons I am a bit concerned about the Attack Resolution system when Accuracy is a bit higher than defense is that damage values on hits can get pretty ridiculous. It might be highly related to imbalanced damage stacking and/or imbalanced monster attacks, but it seems like critical hits get a bit out of control on high damage abilities.

Rogues can stack damage multipliers on top of each other for critical hits of 150-250 with firearm type weapons (Arbalests, Pistols, Arquebuses etc) and some enemies can kill party members with a single crit, even when they are level 8.

I've cheated some party members up to level 12 and I've noticed that the Endurance values cap out at somewhere between ~180-250 for most characters (this was higher under the old attribute system, because now CON gives 20% less Endurance), even with those hit points, characters can still be felled in a couple of hits. A Forest Lurker one-shot KO'd one of my Level 12 Rogues just last night. The Rogue was equipped with Fine Breastplate.

A party of characters that has everyone with an equipped firearm can get extremely nasty as well, pretty much every unit in the game will die from a volley of firearm shots/bolts. There was nothing in the Infinity Engine games that gnarly other than save or die stuff.

Pillars of Eternity (at the moment) is many times more lethal than the Infinity Engine games are, and there are going to be cases where the party will severely outclass enemy defenses, or enemy defenses will seriously outclass party defenses and in these situations, lots of crits together add up and if those crits come from high damage attacks, combat is pretty much over before it started.

That is why I thought that normalizing critical hits would be a good thing, because it would help alleviate the issues where things just start getting silly when crits are happening often and with high damage attacks. Crits with lower damage weapons are absorbed by effective DT (due to being opposed more often), and are thus not as gnarly.

You raised some good points though, so when things are balanced properly (damage values and armor system), it may not be a problem.

I would be interested in hearing what you guys thought about the game's pace and lethality after your internal playthrough.

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The reason I think DT is more problematic than DR is because it (1) inflates the damage ranges of attacks, which kind of feels odd for an IE style game, and (2) I don't think it works very well with percentile increases to damage.

You have done a good job at balancing the weapon styles against eachother against 0 DT. Matt516 did the math and he said that all styles are roughly balanced at ACC-DEF = 0 and 0 DT.

However in realistic scenarios, 1H Single, 1H Fast and Two Weapon Fighting styles are inferior for the purposes of dealing damage pretty much all the time (with a few edge cases).

There are very few melee weapons in the game that are worth using against DT. There's the DT bypassing weapons - Stilettos, Maces, Estocs and the 2H high damage weapons (Morningstars, Quarterstaffs, Pikes ... and Greatswords and Pollaxes which haven't been working properly yet).

When DT is present, anything that attacks faster for the purposes of dealing more damage falls off, because it is opposing DT more often. Stone Beetle Base DT is 15 for instance, when you are attacking with Two 1H normal weapons, you are attacking 50% faster than a two hander, and thus increasing the effective DT by 50%, when dual wielding two 1H normal speed weapons, the Stone Beetle's effective DT vs that enemy would be 22.5

The edge cases I mentioned earlier mostly being when you have DoTs like Deep Wounds, or the Rogue's ability to stack damage multipliers/debuffs (sneak attack + crippling strike followed by sneak attack blinding strike etc - gnarly with Deathblows on).

However against straight DR, all damage is reduced by the same amount. It's less interesting but easier to balance. I'm not sure how or if you intend to tackle the problem of attack speed vs DT but I think it's an issue because it's making a large majority of the weapons in the game pointless to use.

When I mentioned flat DR I certainly didn't mean values going insanely high. I've played some other games that have percentile armor systems that have diminishing returns for every point of armor you have. The more armor you have, the less benefit per point you get as it goes up (Warcraft 3 did this). However yes, it's less interesting and it is in effect raising "Effective Health".

I do think that the issue with DT could (theoretically) be addressed by using integer values for damage increases instead of percentages, as faster weapons get more of a benefit per point when using integer increases, which could help make up for the deficit. I just didn't mention it because I'm not sure if you're interested in trying integer values for anything other than what you already have.

Another way would be to play with the weapon damage ranges so that they are imbalanced against 0 DT, but have a range of efficacy against DT.

Hadn't thought about raising the minimum damage though, When Matt has time, I'll get him to produce a new spreadsheet with the 20% min damage value and see if that would actually work.

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I sent Matt Sheets a message asking what classes they are picking Dexterity on and why. The reason I think it is a dump stat is because the DPS bonus that it grants is worth less per point than Might against DT (due to the same reasons as faster attacking weapons being bad against DT). For each point that I dump Dexterity below 10 and put the extra points into Might, I am gaining DPS against DT because the DPS from Might never gets worse against DT, whereas the DPS benefit from the IAS increase from Dexterity does.

Those extra points can also be put into Perception if ACC-DEF is less than +5 (which is, in the current beta version - pretty much all the time, without buffs from spells), because between -15 and +5, Perception at +1 ACC per point often grants more DPS than Might and Dexterity do, and below -15 it always does.

I like Dexterity on Priests, because they spend a lot of their time in combat casting non-damaging spells, for which the purposes of extra DPS are not needed.

If you're wearing armor, is the -16% benefit from Armored Grace the same as 18 Dexterity in armor? It was my understanding that Recovery Time was always reduced first before the animation speed was even touched. I'll have to check the formula in the source code, I thought they were all additive.

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The reason why I highlighted that Weapon Focus was as good as 20 Perception is that Weapon Focus in D&D gives +1 to attack (at least in 3rd edition), 20 in the primary attribute gives +5 to attack, it seems kind of sad that one Talent can outshine the maximum points in an Attribute. That was more to highlight the fact that Attributes currently don't have enough of an impact on characters due to the new 10 is 0 system.

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My recommendation for +3 ACC per point was in combination with "natural 20" criticals. I agree that it is too much with the current Attack Resolution system. Matt and I were also thinking that under the current system +2 per point and +3% Might/Heal would be better - but that depends on the ACC-DEF situation, we haven't yet made a chart with those values on his DPSCalc Spreadsheet.

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I had a feeling that the Intellect AoE bonus was too small by mistake, because 20 Int gives pretty much nothing in regards to AoE. That would make it a little bit better, certainly.

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Hormalakh did a good mock up with an improved stat sheet in the Inventory with the Interrupt/Concentration values. Personally I think derived stats also need to be shown in the Character Creation screen, so players can actually see, visually, what they get when they increase attributes.

At least publicly you need to seem more conciliatory.

I am a person who speaks my mind, and this is afterall, the RPGCodex. I should be allowed to make a joke here or there, hang shit on people for fun and all that stuff. I don't really do that stuff anywhere else because pretty much you're not allowed to. However I guess it's a bit like being a celebrity and then being a dick on twitter - that shit will spread. I'm not a celebrity, but you're probably right.

you're exhibiting some of the qualities that have been criticised about Sawyer

Everyone is a hypocrite in some way, I think that's unavoidable. So you're probably right. I'd like to hear more detail though - what qualities?

 

[Hormalakh]

My mom never taught me that respect is important regardless of who the person is.

Frankly, I'm with Infinitron on this one. Nobody's saying to lay over and be passive about it or to accept their word uncritically . However, in the real world, people respond in kind to how they are treated. I know some people on the Codex like to be edgy (I am one), but it's just not how it works when you are trying to have a civil conversation.

I think this is the most important thing that Josh said.

Hi, Sensuki. Right now I'm trying to focus most of my efforts internally on bugfixing and getting team feedback. That isn't to say that we're not doing any tuning, but we're in a stage right now where I'm trying to temporarily limit outside input.

At this point, it's pretty much useless to talk to Josh. Our feedback goes through the filter of the wonderful people of Obsidian QA. The very same ones that continue to respond to bug feedback from two versions prior.

 

[Sensuki]

The very same ones that continue to respond to bug feedback from two versions prior.

Yeah that was not encouraging.

To be honest I'm glad they're focusing on bug fixing at the moment. However there's no reason I cannot spend the time they're taking not listening to input creating input to have ready for when they are.

 

[Maculo]

Thanks for posting that response Sensuki. I think it is interesting to see what Josh/Obsidian are willing to change versus what they are invested in.

Not to pile on, but I do not think Sensuki said anything egregious. I would, however, take caution with internet feedback in general. Particularly, an easy-going and conversational writing style may not work for a more corporate setting, especially if our filter are "professional" QA. From what I have seen, there is a disconnect between some beta posters, QA, and Josh/Obsidian.

 

[Sensuki]

To be honest it never occurred to me to talk to the QA guys about the game, but perhaps I should try to? First I'll see if Matt Sheets replies to me but I think it would be interesting to hear what the QA guys think about various things in the game as their opinions have more influence than ours, obviously.

I think perhaps some people are concerned that if I don't take the, for lack of a better description "Brother None and sea" approach when talking about or to developers that I'm ruining my chances of being listened to/shooting myself in the foot.

 

[Maculo]

That may be a good start, since Josh did say that he was focused on bug fixing for now.

 

[Sensuki]

I think I prefer this layout

 

[polo]

Having the skills to the right would surely feel more 'natural' to me.
But i dont dislike the actual UI.

 

[Sensuki]

I *think* this should do the trick

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/69251-sensukis-suggestions-029-customizable-main-hud-mockup/

 

[Shannow]

I am a person who speaks my mind, and this is afterall, the RPGCodex. I should be allowed to make a joke here or there, hang shit on people for fun and all that stuff. I don't really do that stuff anywhere else because pretty much you're not allowed to. However I guess it's a bit like being a celebrity and then being a dick on twitter - that shit will spread. I'm not a celebrity, but you're probably right.

you're exhibiting some of the qualities that have been criticised about Sawyer

Everyone is a hypocrite in some way, I think that's unavoidable. So you're probably right. I'd like to hear more detail though - what qualities?

Hey, I like it. I much rather have people speaking their mind than passive/aggressive bullshit or people falling on their knees before perceived celebrities.
But:
1. I wouldn't bet on Obsidian not reading this thread.
2. If you actually want the other side to move, a diplomatic approach usually is more successful. Especially if your position is so much "weaker" than the other, as it is in this case.

See, I can call them Obshitians and criticise their designs all day long without consequence. But you actually aim for "consequences"

As on qualities:
Now this is really just the impression I get. It might be factually "wrong", but if I get it, others might also.
You have a very set vision of where the game should go and very strong opinions on how certain stuff should be implemented. You put so much effort into this that one might consider you a "shadow lead designer". Sawyer is also very set in his vision and is rather slow in moving away from certain decisions, if at all. That is exacerbated by the whole dismissal of other opinions as grognard, etc. You also exhibit the quality as being of the opinion to be always/mostly right and one of a kind. At least that's the impression I get *shrug*

But I also like speaking my mind:

My mom never taught me that respect is important regardless of who the person is.

Stopped reading right there. You must be a moronic, 13 year old girl. You are unable to actually express what you want to say. And I show far more respect than you deserve by taking the time to reply to you. I hope you appreciate it.

But see, Sen, that will certainly not make Homo post any more intelligently. He(?) will either ignore the post, will put me on ignore or will reply in some kind of attack. (Not that diplomacy would have worked any better in this case.)

 

[Sensuki]

2. If you actually want the other side to move, a diplomatic approach usually is more successful.

Just something I have to work on.

As on qualities:
Now this is really just the impression I get. It might be factually "wrong", but if I get it, others might also.
You have a very set vision of where the game should go and very strong opinions on how certain stuff should be implemented. You put so much effort into this that one might consider you a "shadow lead designer". Sawyer is also very set in his vision and is rather slow in moving away from certain decisions, if at all. That is exacerbated by the whole dismissal of other opinions as grognard, etc. You also exhibit the quality as being of the opinion to be always/mostly right and one of a kind. At least that's the impression I get *shrug*

I do have a very set vision of what the game should be. I'm cemented on certain things, although I'm not cemented on everything. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go on a rampage about Melee Engagement at some point, but stuff like Attack Resolutions, Armor Systems, etc etc I'm not set on any ideas, and just because I came up with something I thought might be a solution to the problems I see with them, doesn't mean I won't listen to reason if someone actually proves that it's a bad idea or if someone presents a better one. I don't think I'm anyone special, I'm just a guy with a lot of determination, a good memory and (currently) a lot of free time. Most of the time I don't argue about stuff I'm not too familiar with.

Sawyer probably does think I'm a grognard, but I don't think too many of the things I say are that grognardy - I prefer Solid UIs, I like looting corpses individually, I don't use auto-pause or any of that shit ... but I think most of my opinions on mechanical stuff are pretty ungrog - at least in regards to Pillars of Eternity.

I think it's mostly my determination that puts people off, you don't tend to notice someone if they say they don't like something once and then shrug or give up, but I don't quit like that. It probably makes me annoying to lots of people, but I think this trait is helping us get a few small victories for the game. Do you think that if I didn't constantly complain about recovery time being paused while moving that it would have been changed? Infinitron or C2B usually afford the devs the benefit of the doubt, but I don't think anyone else would have gone to the effort that I did to get it removed.

 

[Sensuki]

Josh replied again

Spoiler

In the next Backer Beta build, battle axe crit damage has been lowered (it's now double instead of 2.25), rogue Sneak Attack has been lowered from 2 to 1.75, and firearm, crossbow, and arbalest damage have all been lowered (compensated somewhat by DT bypass) due to wild rogue combos and people making parties of roving arqubusiers/arbalesters that mow down everything.

When looking at a balance problem in a game, you can consider it as a systemic problem or a content problem. Sneak Attack being 2x was probably a bit much. Battle axes, crossbows/arbalests, and firearms all felt like they were way too macho on crits, so those items were specifically addressed (bows were brought up a little bit, BTW).

Specific creatures like lurkers with freight train hits are also outliers, though it's worth noting that forest lurkers are high level critters for that area. Still, I've been meaning to tune their damage down. Even standard hits for them are brutal.

In our first internal playthrough, we found that arbalests reigned supreme. Everyone gravitated toward having arbalests in their off-set and well-played rogues with battle axes were ludicrous once melee started. We've toned those down recently, so things should be more reasonable.

Stone Beetles are among the most heavily-armored enemies you fight in the BB and are easily in the top 1/3 of DTs for monsters across the whole game. Really heavy armor is kind of their "deal", so shouldn't necessarily be used as typical for how monsters are, DT-wise. Creatures like lions and most spiders have modest or even bad armor. Even so, the 1H weapons will likely rise in overall damage because they're supposed to be markedly superior when armor is modest or low. It's a relatively easy thing to chart in a spreadsheet, but I haven't put time into tuning the base values yet. One of the easiest things about is that all 1H fast melee weapons have the same damage range, as do all 1H normal melee weapons and all 2H melee weapons. Adjusting one means adjusting the entire category, so it's fast and easy to see the impact the change has.

We're still working on character sheet revisions. I agree it has a ways to go.

The solution to the weapon imbalance appears like it's going to be 20% MIN damage instead of 10% and tweaking damage ranges so that they scale over DT (which is something I mentioned yonks ago shortly after I did the attribute paper, quote is on SA for posterity) although I wasn't sure if they were going to budge on that.

In light of this news, I think those two changes combined *could* do the trick, I'll have to check with Matt to confirm though.

 

[Abu Antar]

I think that we will see lots of improvements and balance fixing while comparing how they play. I just hope that they don't make things too easy.

I hope to see the combat slowed down a bit and the combat log still neads better clarity. It feels like a mess.

 

[Sensuki]

Here was Matt Sheets reply about Dexterity

Spoiler

Hey Sensuki,

While I do disagree that Dexterity is a dump stat, I unfortunately don't have the time to get into a long discussion on what/why/how we're building characters to utilize all of their stats/abilities/etc.

What I suggest is to make a post on the forums, and hopefully when I get time or other developers get time, we can post and get into details or you can get some feedback from some of our other backers.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Nihiliste]

Did he really italicize that part or was it your emphasis? Hilarious either way