Holy Criticals, this game feels like it cheats! (Confirmation Bias hurtin' real bad :B)

[Rex is back, baby!]

I am playing on Core, because wynaut? Also spoilers, in case you want to still remain blind.

I loved Kingmaker, decided for this game to cook in the oven a little bit more before playing it.

I am currently about to face the demon attack on the inn, Market Square was a heckin' slogfest! All those mobs and the side missions including. BIG ramp up from the tutorial dungeon.

What originally prompted this post, was a harrowing journey to complete the Mimic Alchemist encounter and the invisible succubus.

Thanks to severe crowd control and lucky rolls on my end (Ember <3 sleep, Grease <3; etc, you know how it is.), finally beat them!

My frustration, near every side counter I've had, the demons have had incredibly lucky crit rolls.
I spent half the time trying to heal my frontline back up only for them to fall to crits again and again. Tried RTS and TBS, same thing.

I was curious, because of this observation, if demons on core, just, have natural inclination to crit? Cause my team has 30-40 health, a crit is usually 40 damage here. Seelah is decked out in +2 gear and still falls to crits constantly.

I'm a follower of Desna, where's MY luck t.t
Of course, it's confirmation bias, but holy RNGesus :C WHY SO CRUEL!

[THIS IS SPARTA!]

check difficulty

[Rex is back, baby!]

Originally posted by Sheik Volinrabah:

check difficulty

I'm on core, because that's "how it's meant to be played" correct?

Like, the succubus fight in the half-orc scout couple's home...
I had to fight that 4 times, with 2 of the fights lasting WAY longer than they should because "miss" vs "miss" mechanics, and three of them losing out because the enemy kept on getting lucky crits xD.

Crits are happening way more frequently, in my opinion, than they should!

Although it is satisfying to see corpses explode into a bloody pulp when YOUR guys crit...

I rather not lower the difficulty, because I like playing games on the "intended" difficulty setting xD.

[Raistlin]

Originally posted by Rex:

[quote=Sheik
I'm on core, because that's "how it's meant to be played" correct?

Like, the succubus fight in the half-orc scout couple's home...
I had to fight that 4 times, with 2 of the fights lasting WAY longer than they should because "miss" vs "miss" mechanics, and three of them losing out because the enemy kept on getting lucky crits xD.

Crits are happening way more frequently, in my opinion, than they should!

Although it is satisfying to see corpses explode into a bloody pulp when YOUR guys crit...

I rather not lower the difficulty, because I like playing games on the "intended" difficulty setting xD.

A lot of people make the incorrect assumption that core is the way the game is meant to be played, but it isn't. It's actually hard difficulty. Anything above normal is hard. The default difficulty is normal. Also, the game is not cheating. At least not in the sense you think it is. Enemies on core+ do have inflated stats though, and that requires you to optimize your characters quite a bit.

Keep in mind that it's a 5% chance to roll a natural 20 which is a guaranteed critical. Also, some weapons have larger critical threat ranges, and improved critical also increases threat range. I recommend you make use of protective luck if you have Camellia, Ember, or any other character with access to hexes. Also make sure you stack bonuses, keeping in mind that bonuses of the same type usually don'e stack except for dodge. Also, make good use of reach. Either through reach weapons or spells like enlarge person.

As you progress through the game you will get access to equipment, spells, and abilities which will provide you resistance and even immunity to critical hits, mind-affecting spells, and various other negative effects. If you're going to play on core you'll want to plan your build somewhat in advance. Otherwise you're going to run into certain roadblocks. Especially since respec isn't allowed on core+.

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by Rex:

I rather not lower the difficulty, because I like playing games on the "intended" difficulty setting xD.

Normal is the normal difficulty. Which is why its the default setting.

[Rex is back, baby!]

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

Originally posted by Rex:

I rather not lower the difficulty, because I like playing games on the "intended" difficulty setting xD.

Normal is the normal difficulty. Which is why its the default setting.

Although difficulty is not the intention of my post, the intention being my frustration of bad luck and rolls xD, I think I may have explained myself poorly.

I tried looking for the thread I that I am basing my (maybe misinformed, outdated) knowledge on, but it was from the now-defunct owlcat forums RIP. From my understanding, Core is the developer's interpretation of the Pathfinder ruleset translated to CRPGs? Is that correct, if not correct, what is core designed for?

What difficulty did Owlcat design WOTR around? Would that be 'normal?'

In Kingmaker, I believe core was the intended difficulty, the direct translation of table-top rules. Is it not the same for WoTR? I beat Kingmaker on Core, up to the secret final boss.

Difficulty isn't really an issue. What is, is my frustration in two things. Enemies are surprisingly getting frequent critical hits off (when it should be a 5% chance?), and the long drawn out 'miss' vs 'miss' fights I keep having with the more powerful mobs/minibosses. My rolls vs their rolls just aren't great, and they keep resisting my debuffs :C.

The Dice Gods, whether you believe in RNGesus, Nuffle, etc., are just not looking at me favorably xD.

Originally posted by rubberpig:

A lot of people make the incorrect assumption that core is the way the game is meant to be played, but it isn't. It's actually hard difficulty. Anything above normal is hard. The default difficulty is normal. Also, the game is not cheating. At least not in the sense you think it is. Enemies on core+ do have inflated stats though, and that requires you to optimize your characters quite a bit.

Keep in mind that it's a 5% chance to roll a natural 20 which is a guaranteed critical. Also, some weapons have larger critical threat ranges, and improved critical also increases threat range. I recommend you make use of protective luck if you have Camellia, Ember, or any other character with access to hexes. Also make sure you stack bonuses, keeping in mind that bonuses of the same type usually don'e stack except for dodge. Also, make good use of reach. Either through reach weapons or spells like enlarge person.

As you progress through the game you will get access to equipment, spells, and abilities which will provide you resistance and even immunity to critical hits, mind-affecting spells, and various other negative effects. If you're going to play on core you'll want to plan your build somewhat in advance. Otherwise you're going to run into certain roadblocks. Especially since respec isn't allowed on core+.

It's either very bad luck or weighted dice on the enemy's part. the past few encounters I've had :b. I'm only at level 5-6 at the moment, about to defend the Inn from demon attacks.

At the moment, my main front liner is Seelah (with Camilla's enlarge person spell), and my Camilla (rapier + buckler, and building her to be a dex tank). Then I have two melee dps. Woljit and my MC who is a melee bard with a Fauchard. Ember and Daerion as supports in the backrow. I would have had Nenio and Lann instead of Camilla and Daerion, but I'm returning from Camilla's companion quest and picking him (our favorite Oracle) up at the Hedonist mansion. So maybe it's just I have a low damage output team xD.

I played Core on Kingmaker, so I thought it'd be the same experience in WoTR. WoTR is WAY harder. Not a problem, just expands the strategic significance of what I can and cannot do. I haven't run into an encounter where my build or party synergy cannot beat yet. Most battles are result of bad dice rolls, aka chance. Not an impossible wall to overcome.

I don't like wasting unnecessary time, so if WoTR's core becomes a significant resource drain on trash pulls, then I will lower the difficulty. I might have to install that bubble mod that auto buffs your party before each battle (IE saves time so you don't do it yourself).

I don't even think lowering the difficulty would help alleviate my critical concern, but the rate they keep happening against me, I have to think something's up xD.

[Immortal Reaver]

Originally posted by Rex:

and the long drawn out 'miss' vs 'miss' fights I keep having with the more powerful mobs/minibosses. My rolls vs their rolls just aren't great, and they keep resisting my debuffs :C.

This. If it is long drawn out fight eventualy enemy will get a lot of crits.
If you hit more, fight will last shorter time and enemy will not have so much time to roll crits.
On these side enemies, you have to throw everything you have at them.

RNG is fair as RNG go. It's basic unchanged Unity RNG, no matter the difficulty the RNG does not change. There could be stuck RNG seed or bug, but not intentional fudge.

[Raistlin]

Originally posted by Rex:

It's either very bad luck or weighted dice on the enemy's part. the past few encounters I've had :b. I'm only at level 5-6 at the moment, about to defend the Inn from demon attacks.

I don't even think lowering the difficulty would help alleviate my critical concern, but the rate they keep happening against me, I have to think something's up xD.

The dice are not weighted. There were a lot of people claiming this when the game released, and it was disproved very thoroughly.

You also probably aren't getting unlucky. Think about how many times a D20 is rolled in this game. 1 in every 20 of those rolls will be a 20 (on average). The same thing goes for rolling a 1. You're going to see a lot of 1s and 20s. Also consider the fact that your party is very significantly outnumbered and the enemies are generally much higher level than you. Especially in the early game, which means more attacks per round and better action economy overall. That means the enemy gets to roll more often than you. This will likely result in more opportunities to roll a 20, and more opportunities for you to roll a 1 if said attacks are coupled with saving throws.

Again, you could mitigate this somewhat by using the protective luck hex. That makes it 1 in 400 for the enemy to get a 20. Fortune hex makes it 1 in 400 for you to roll a 1, so that's a pretty good hex as well. There are other abilities that give similar effects like "Always a Chance" and cleric's luck domain.

Originally posted by Rex:

I might have to install that bubble mod that auto buffs your party before each battle (IE saves time so you don't do it yourself).

I highly recommend Bubble Buffs. It definitely speeds things up quite a bit. I also recommend you install a mod to allow achievements with mods enabled as well. ToyBox is the most up-to-date mod that does that afaik. However, it also adds a lot more than reenabling mods.

[Soul]

from the way I see it...and someone feel free correct me if im wrong.... normal is normal mode for a reason... due to you having 6 members in your party they adjusted enemy stats so that even normal they are higher than normal to make it a little more "balanced"... and so to compensate for this they adjusted enemy damage and critical damage down a bit on normal mode.... so basically enemies are buffed more than usual and normal mode tries to balance it by giving your characters a little more leeway..... but beyond normal mode enemies get stronger and more inflated stats while your characters get less balance adjustments... they get stronger and you get weaker.... and core mode is the drop off where you receive no adjustments while enemies still do... so while "your" characters are playing by the "core" rules... they get all the perks of inflated stats and such..

plus I could be wrong but I think there is a translation thing too I havent been able to confirm.... but I heard somewhere that in some languages "core" mode is actually labeled as "hard" mode.... and reason we got it labeled in english as "core" was cause our characters are stipped of the all the "balance adjustments" for dealing with enemies that have buffed up beyond their tabletop equivalents... thus we're playing by the "core" rules... while game is designed originally to be played "normal" mode

[TOLYAN JIGAN]

I do think that engine is cheating on rolls, at least on unfair and pre-unfair difficulties, but i am too lazy to check.
I'm not even surprised when Wenduag constantly misses 4 out of 5, with an 80% chance of hitting. And rolls 1 almost every time at the beginning of the fight.

[Morphic]

First playthrough I thought I was just unlucky until I started to notice every fight had the enemy getting crits 2-6 times at least on Core. Then I started to think maybe it was the game due to how consistent it was. Not to mention repeated misses due to low rolls despite high(Act 1) modifiers of +10-15 to hit for my chars. (At one point I was like can someone please roll higher than a 5! lol)

I started getting really frustrated clearing out the Marketplace since Seelah(my main tank) was just being ripped apart even with 28 AC pre-buff... and there were just so many punishing encounters.(Shadows with Stat Drain) So I caved and lowered the difficulty to Normal. Holy moley, was it a drastic change. I was blitzing through encounters without ever needing to cast a spell and most times people would only get hurt from an enemy crit.

Definitely recommend lowering difficulty to Normal for a better experience. Save Core for a second playthrough or when you really want to optimize characters.

[Hex]

Anything above normal requires actual min-maxing and proper builds for your party. Instead of complaining, turn the slider down, that's what it's there for.

[Dave]

Originally posted by Rex:

So I'm past Market Square, doing the side missions.
The mimic alchemist room was hell, managed to finally beat that, thanks to severe crowd control and lucky sleeps from Ember @_@.

That was the tip of my problem.
Near every side counter I've had, the demons have had incredibly lucky crit rolls.
I spent half the time trying to heal my frontline back up only for htem to fall to crits again and again. Tried RTS and TBS, same thing.

Do demons on core, just, have natural inclination to crit? Cause my team has 30-40 health, a crit is usually 40 damage here. Seelah is decked out in +2 gear and still falls to crits constantly.

I'm a follower of Desna, where's MY luck t.t

After countless hours in this game i can tell you this.

On Unfair at least (never tried lower diffs) it is A LOT more likely for enemies to do a double 20, and hit your tank over protective luck, than your party doing a single 20 and hit your enemy

So ya, i have no proof other than experience but i would say there's some cheating involved for sure

[TOLYAN JIGAN]

Originally posted by Dave:

Originally posted by Rex:

So I'm past Market Square, doing the side missions.
The mimic alchemist room was hell, managed to finally beat that, thanks to severe crowd control and lucky sleeps from Ember @_@.

That was the tip of my problem.
Near every side counter I've had, the demons have had incredibly lucky crit rolls.
I spent half the time trying to heal my frontline back up only for htem to fall to crits again and again. Tried RTS and TBS, same thing.

Do demons on core, just, have natural inclination to crit? Cause my team has 30-40 health, a crit is usually 40 damage here. Seelah is decked out in +2 gear and still falls to crits constantly.

I'm a follower of Desna, where's MY luck t.t

After countless hours in this game i can tell you this.

On Unfair at least (never tried lower diffs) it is A LOT more likely for enemies to do a double 20, and hit your tank over protective luck, than your party doing a single 20 and hit your enemy

So ya, i have no proof other than experience but i would say there's some cheating involved for sure

At one time I wanted to just record all the rolls for at least one act to check the distribution, but then I just resigned myself.

[Rex is back, baby!]

Originally posted by Hex:

Anything above normal requires actual min-maxing and proper builds for your party. Instead of complaining, turn the slider down, that's what it's there for.

Hex, I encourage you to reread my post with a more positive tone. None of what I said was a complaint. More an observation from frustration. Not once did I complain. Also, I didn't bring up difficulty. I brought up rolling and RNG xD.

I have heard the argument that computer-simulated randomness is not actually random, that's a whole 'nother debate about math and statistics though :3.
--

It does seem core skews the dice rolls in favor of the enemies, but alas no proof, just an expression of frustration!

Here's the thing.
On lower difficulties, you roflstomp. Roflstomping, ultimately, incurs less dice rolls. So on 'normal' difficulty, you might see 20 dice rolls an encounter between you and the enemy, versus on core, where you could see 80 dice rolls.

10% chance, each roll, a critical hit or miss happens.

With that logic, frequency dictates that we'll see more critical events on higher difficulties (80 rolls) than lower difficulties (20 rolls).


Still doesn't help the frustration that the criticals we notice are more against us than for us.

[Hex]

Originally posted by Rex:

Originally posted by Hex:

Anything above normal requires actual min-maxing and proper builds for your party. Instead of complaining, turn the slider down, that's what it's there for.

Hex, I encourage you to reread my post with a more positive tone. None of what I said was a complaint. More an observation from frustration. Not once did I complain. Also, I didn't bring up difficulty. I brought up rolling and RNG xD.

I have heard the argument that computer-simulated randomness is not actually random, that's a whole 'nother debate about math and statistics though :3.
--

It does seem core skews the dice rolls in favor of the enemies, but alas no proof, just an expression of frustration!

Here's the thing.
On lower difficulties, you roflstomp. Roflstomping, ultimately, incurs less dice rolls. So on 'normal' difficulty, you might see 20 dice rolls an encounter between you and the enemy, versus on core, where you could see 80 dice rolls.

10% chance, each roll, a critical hit or miss happens.

With that logic, frequency dictates that we'll see more critical events on higher difficulties (80 rolls) than lower difficulties (20 rolls).


Still doesn't help the frustration that the criticals we notice are more against us than for us.

That's because a computer does not roll 1-20, it rolls way more so streaks happen more frequently, which also means you need a sample size of hundreds of thousands to reach an average. For example, a computer could roll 1-200000 and everything between 1 and 10000 registers as 1. While the chance to roll between 1-10000 is the same as rolling 1 on a d20 on average, the chances of streaks in a small sample size is much higher.

If it's frustrating, turn the difficulty down or just the effect of crits on your party so 1-2 crits don't cause a wipe. Also no, normal is not a "roflstomp", you're still gonna get clapped by the optional bosses if you're not prepared. Just the normal enemies don't pose that much of a threat early on, and later on it doesn't matter at all what difficulty you play on you're still gonna steamroll normal enemies in 1-2 turns.

Playing on a difficulty that's frustrating instead of fun is utterly baffling to me.