This is not Balance: PoE-Deadfire

[RocketMan]

https://imgur.com/gallery/2xbYac9

Who in their right mind thought this was balanced. What use is there to learning a ton of skills if I can't hit with most of them?

Enemies that you can hit, you can defeat easily. Whereas thugs like these require ray spells or summons to tackle. (Ray spells only if you have a slight chance to hit)

This is not increasing the difficulty. This is just an arbitrary barrier to make up for lack of any real challenge. And this, is the biggest flaw of deadfire Hands down.

[Heinz]

Whats with all the weird obsession about "balance" in a singleplayer game?

I share your sentiment about the game mechanics having some issues however, but as long as you are having fun, I do not think it is that much of a problem. To be perfectly honest I believe they should have just gone with either DND or Pathfinder rulesets even if that means being a bit more restricted by the existing lore in these game settings...

Being a DND title alone would have already boosted sales aswell, since a bunch of nerds are thirsting for some good titles :)

[RocketMan]

Originally posted by Heinz:

Whats with all the weird obsession about "balance" in a singleplayer game?

I share your sentiment about the game mechanics having some issues however, but as long as you are having fun, I do not think it is that much of a problem. To be perfectly honest I believe they should have just gone with either DND or Pathfinder rulesets even if that means being a bit more restricted by the existing lore in these game settings...

Being a DND title alone would have already boosted sales aswell, since a bunch of nerds are thirsting for some good titles :)

Eh, at the end of the day having more fun is having a challenge that doesn't feel unfair. That's what balance means to me.

It doesn't matter if I win or lose, if it still feels unfair or too easy.

[Dixon Sider]

Balance is VERY important in a video game. They are so close too. I think the character classes are more balanced than the original. I dont feel like wizard is the uncontested best dps in the game any more. the only thing is the difficulty of the encounters. Which obsidian siad they are working on it right now. Im very excited to play the game with more challenging encounters.

[The Badman]

Originally posted by Mail me to the Moon:

It boils down to the difference between morrowind and darksouls

A giant portion of dark souls difficulty come from testing player reflex. Give it a pause button that this sort of game rightfully need and it become a cake walk.

"remove the level system entirely and focus on balancing the game around tactics." Which remove 50% of the genre's appeal: more power and combat options as the game progress. Are you asking for starcraft here? You know there are ways to balance game with level progression, right?

"I'd also like to see enemies more powerful, but easier to hit." You know that in a game with a pause button. This make it even easier right? You can easily pause at combat start, stun all the enemies, then beat on them like helpless dummy. Issueing command without knowing the absolute result is a compromise due to the very nature of the genre. You dont have the same guy waiting at your base whenver you lose somebody. Removing the pause you say? Then enjoy seeing the hyper reactive AI tear your party to shred before you can make xoti whip out a heal.

"A single mob should go down easy" Make the game easier. Wut?

"a bunch of mobs should keep you on your toes" Run contrary to your proposition above.This is a party-based game. You ever play dark souls with phantom? The game is a cakewalk with that feature

"You can even work in ability discovery to make a more linear difficulty progression." Already in the game, unique items with their passive and active abilities as well as summoning stones... Ability discovery does not linear progression make. The game map let you go anywhere at the start. Are you asking for PoE 1? I can get unique weapon of exceptional quality before touching fine weapon. I can get zweihander before getting the wooden shield...

TL;DR: You are making the game easier.

My fix for the difficulty would be bring back long term mechanics from the 1st game (that can be activated akin to Path of Iron) like Camping supplies (merge with food mechanic in this game), health/endurance. Empower is limited to 1 per rest and cant restore spell uses. Spells already have major impact at their base. Dungeon respawn when you leave the area. Combat xp function like the first game: enemies stop giving xp after their bestiary page is filled.

A LOT of the difficulty problem of this game came from that lack of long term planning. Like in your case, xoti can have 2*6*2(from empower) +1 = 25 spells to sustain your party while everybody has 1 second wind. Making it 30 sustain spell in one fight. Add in whatever pots you can bring with you (why even let player bring more pots than last game anyway) for the enourmous amount of healing you can have per encounter. Imagine you have that many to use but ... for the whole dungeon.

For enemies give them as devastating disable and debuff as players. Give them more movement abilities. Make AI coordinate the use of their abilities. Mix and match more enemies types together...

I'm sure there's still more without making this game dawn of war 2.

[RocketMan]

I'm not too good at formatting so I won't. Keep in mind it is not my job to figure out the nuances of balance. If we wanted to, we could debate this for months trying to replace the system. The fact of the matter is it is broken, and that it is far easier to criticize than it is to create.

"For enemies give them as devastating disable and debuff as players. Give them more movement abilities. Make AI coordinate the use of their abilities. Mix and match more enemies types together..."

This is what I meant with having weak mobs and strong groups. I'd like to see the ai at the point where they can work together to compliment each other. 2guards working together should be far harder to defeat than two guards fighting independently. A single rando shouldn't be able to stand too well against a group of 5-6 seasoned adventurers anyways.

"A giant portion of dark souls difficulty come from testing player reflex. Give it a pause button that this sort of game rightfully need and it become a cake walk."
It's called an analogy. Ofcourse it isn't a 1-1 comparison. You might want to buff that intuition stat.

Morrowind is an action rpg that used a clunky outdated combat system. Poed feels the same.
Morrowind is to darksouls as poed is to something like van helsing or torchlight*


"Which remove 50% of the genre's appeal: more power and combat options as the game progress. Are you asking for starcraft here? You know there are ways to balance game with level progression, right? "

Leveling is not the only way you can make characters progress. I'd recommend looking into the geneforge or avernum sagaa if you want a decent example. One of the things I enjoyed about those games was that you often earned abilities by exploring, or progressing through the game. Find a priest to teach your priest how to mass heal or similar.


" Are you asking for PoE 1?" It is a fact that games with linear progression are easier to balance. That doesn't mean making the gameplay linear. Infact you already see it in poe2 if you turn off level scaling. Going near magda's teeth is going to be tougher than staying around neketaka.

In an open world game with good linear progression the player is guided by difficulty.
Also keep in mind, I was expressing it as an alternative to the level system. It does not need to be item based, but it's one way to do it. YOU did ask what I would do.

I'm done argueing with you. You're making yourself out to be a troll.

[RocketMan]

Originally posted by dixon sider:

Balance is VERY important in a video game. They are so close too. I think the character classes are more balanced than the original. I dont feel like wizard is the uncontested best dps in the game any more. the only thing is the difficulty of the encounters. Which obsidian siad they are working on it right now. Im very excited to play the game with more challenging encounters.

I really agree. I really enjoyed poed much more than the original pillars. Obsidian's on the right track, and I'd love to see them get it right.