balancing issues

[Domenco]

First thing is first. I love this game!

But as a D&D veteran, I can say this game as some horrible balancing issues. And I am talking a casual play through here.

Let's start with the fact that most players will get to the soft cap of 27-31 AC really quickly.
that is your reward for building your character correctly. Enemies should be balanced around these numbers. But they are not, enemies are balanced as if you have 40-50 AC.

Example : I am fighting a ferocious Smilodon, his to hit has a +24 on it. So even if I have 31 AC he only needs to roll a 7 or higher, that is a 65% hit chance, all the time. Imagine if he hits a character with only 28 ac, 3 points lower, he will have a 80% chance to hit me.
This is compounded and made worse by the fact that this simple creature also hits as a truck. 2d4+12, that is insane for an enemies that hits you most of the time.

And that was just a simple mob in this game, enemy you encounter plenty. For a game that is this open and lets you make a diverse roster of characters in all kinds of flavours. It punishes you extremely hard if they are not 100% optimized, you have to be a power gamer or you will keep dying at some of these encounters.

So for the Devs, Encounters should be designed around the Percentage a player has to hit and damage a monster. it is a really easy formula but I get the sense that most monsters in the game are designed to counter the best builds, that have min maxed everything.
If that is the case, don't allow us to create our characters as we want and just force those super builds on us.

PS : And for those who will reply with : You have buffs, yes there are buffs but you can't have those few spells that give you concealment as a cornerstone for every build. If the game leans too hard on those spells, other spells will not be viable anymore and will never be used.

[BoogieMan]

Yeah, pretty sweet when Minagho gets 12 attacks a round and lands every one against AC38.

3 rounds in a row.

I have characters with like +24 hit and many enemies can only be hit with a 20.

[Elnidfse]

It gets dumber on a certain path[i.imgur.com] Have fun trying to not get hit by this 53 brilliant energy scythe on a path that forces you solo.

[Anri of Astora]

Originally posted by Elnidfse:

It gets dumber on a certain path[i.imgur.com] Have fun trying to not get hit by this 53 brilliant energy scythe on a path that forces you solo.

Oh.my.god.

[JustSmile]

This is not DnD, even if it is a system derived directly from it. 31 AC is not even close to strong, or anywhere near a cap.

[Jom]

If you really optimize you can get around 100 AC and still do crazy damage (about 300-400 per hit). You won't need even half of it, but if we are talking about optimizing, you could do it. I had some real trouble with the smilodons too when i met them the first time. Switched to turn based to use some skills and it was no problem. You could slow them down with a spell and take same down with your ranged party members for example.

[Snorgrind]

Originally posted by BoogieMan:

Yeah, pretty sweet when Minagho gets 12 attacks a round and lands every one against AC38.

3 rounds in a row.

I have characters with like +24 hit and many enemies can only be hit with a 20.

that was in act4 ? she deleted my 45AC Seelah in one turn. loaded the game and did same thing to her before she could attack. It sometimes feels like a lots of boss fights are designed around who can oneshot the other one faster.

[gphotopoulos]

I give it an hour at most before someone posts about how you don't know how to make characters, that you should have AC 60, not 38 etc. etc. But you are spot on, the balance is off. And to be clear, I think having different difficulty modes should allow a wide variety of experiences, so I have no problem with "unfair" mode, being, well, unfair. And I understand that some of the hard bosses are optional, but you know balance is off when "normal" mode has reduced crit damage and reduced enemy stats.

[JustSmile]

Originally posted by Jom:

I had some real trouble with the smilodons to when i met them the first time.

You can meet them VERY early. There are a few options:
1) Treat them as a miniboss and figure out how to kill a pack of superior enemies
2) Lower your difficulty
3) Be careful walking around an unscouted map, notice one before aggroing them, check out their statblock, and run away leaving the location for a bit later in the game.

[Andante]

Why are people complaining when you can literally make builds that hit for 3000 a round

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=im93DfMNeGQ

Also the soft cap is probably 80 AC for players in wrath for Mono class builds in wrath. 100-110 ac is prob the hard cap for players if you munchkin.

Some of us are playing with 100 ac tanks and dps doing 1000-3000 damage a round and you guys talking about 30 ac "soft cap" rofl.

Are we even playing the same game? Like I'm literally making my characters weaker by not multiclassing on harder difficulties for fun yet people complaining about difficulty

[Nito]

Originally posted by Andante:

Why are people complaining when you can literally make builds that hit for 3000 a round

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=im93DfMNeGQ

Also the soft cap is probably 80 AC for players in wrath for Mono class builds in wrath. 100-110 ac is prob the hard cap for players if you munchkin.

Some of us are playing with 100 ac tanks and dps doing 1000-3000 damage a round and you guys talking about 30 ac "soft cap" rofl.

Are we even playing the same game? Like I'm literally making my characters weaker by not multiclassing on harder difficulties for fun yet people complaining about difficulty

Dont forget Legend Myth path that allows you to lvl 40

[Andante]

Originally posted by Nito:

Originally posted by Andante:

Why are people complaining when you can literally make builds that hit for 3000 a round

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=im93DfMNeGQ

Also the soft cap is probably 80 AC for players in wrath for Mono class builds in wrath. 100-110 ac is prob the hard cap for players if you munchkin.

Some of us are playing with 100 ac tanks and dps doing 1000-3000 damage a round and you guys talking about 30 ac "soft cap" rofl.

Are we even playing the same game? Like I'm literally making my characters weaker by not multiclassing on harder difficulties for fun yet people complaining about difficulty

Dont forget Legend Myth path that allows you to lvl 40

I literally refuse to go that lvl 40 path due to how OP it is.

I'm not going vitat strike build that does 3-5k damage a round

Not going 40 legend where you can push almost 100 to hit and almost 100 ac at same time ( havent seen anyone get over 100 to hit though)

Also not going skald pounce+ mythic charge combo that lets you one shot bosses first round.

No wide sweep sycthe + legendary proportions build that lets you aoe clear who rooms in one hit

Or unkillable azata build where you get 50% damage reduction 60% hit evation and 75 fast healing on top off 60-80+ ac depending on class.

So many OP things you can do to trivialize difficulty yet people cry on forums

[BoogieMan]

Originally posted by Snorgrind:

Originally posted by BoogieMan:

Yeah, pretty sweet when Minagho gets 12 attacks a round and lands every one against AC38.

3 rounds in a row.

I have characters with like +24 hit and many enemies can only be hit with a 20.

that was in act4 ? she deleted my 45AC Seelah in one turn. loaded the game and did same thing to her before she could attack. It sometimes feels like a lots of boss fights are designed around who can oneshot the other one faster.

Chapter 4 spoilers

Yeah, but Staunton had the mythic ability that allows him to fight after going into negative HP, plus armor that was giving him 10 fast healing so he wasn't going down so even though she was laying into him the whole time he was just standing there like "lol IDGAF." I got her low then passed rounds for everyone else while he axed her down.

Disappointed by the little cutscene after, real missed opportunity.

[angryemu285]

Originally posted by JustSmile:

This is not DnD, even if it is a system derived directly from it. 31 AC is not even close to strong, or anywhere near a cap.

Well this game is based on the pathfinder table top game. As a PF vet for the last 10 years, most monsters (Below level 12) should only hit a 31 with a 15+ on the die. What I believe the OP was going for is that every fight should not be life or death. Trash mobs exist for a reason to make boss fights harder.

This game has some very serious game balance problems. And I say this with the lens that it markets itself as using the "Pathfinder rules system". Which it kind of does... but in other ways it significantly doesnt. And combat, which is one of the cornerstones of the tabletop, pays no attention to the rules, mechanics, or bestiary :)

So I guess it just depends on your perspective of what "balance" is. If you look at it as a video game, then maybe? This might be the difficulty the Devs wanted. If you look at it as a faithful reproduction of the table top, then you are blitzed out of your mind to think it is balanced without optimizing your character to go in fully buffed in every combat against a CR 7 kitty cat (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/animals/felines/smilodon-tohc/smilodon-dire-tohc/)

[BoogieMan]

Originally posted by Nito:

Originally posted by Andante:

Why are people complaining when you can literally make builds that hit for 3000 a round

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=im93DfMNeGQ

Also the soft cap is probably 80 AC for players in wrath for Mono class builds in wrath. 100-110 ac is prob the hard cap for players if you munchkin.

Some of us are playing with 100 ac tanks and dps doing 1000-3000 damage a round and you guys talking about 30 ac "soft cap" rofl.

Are we even playing the same game? Like I'm literally making my characters weaker by not multiclassing on harder difficulties for fun yet people complaining about difficulty

Dont forget Legend Myth path that allows you to lvl 40

Maybe because you're not level 40 the whole game, not until late, and not everyone likes playing cheese builds. Just a guess.

[Gregorovitch]

What is "soft cap" and "hard cap"?

Originally posted by Andante:

Also the soft cap is probably 80 AC for players in wrath for Mono class builds in wrath. 100-110 ac is prob the hard cap for players if you munchkin.

I don't see how it is possible to get more than about 40 to 45 AC on any character. My Seelah has decent armour and the Tower Shield. That puts her about 32 AC base I think (this is in Act 2). Buffing her, defensive fighting etc can push this to about 40AC. There is no means that I can see to add more than that.

I really don't understand what you are talking about here - do you mean using mods of some kind?