Balance Changes to Chill, Shock, and Charges
I liked choking ash :/
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Finally read through all the pages of posts.
I'm glad the changes were reverted for the most part. The issues with the changes that I see/saw: * Charges are such a broad-reaching game element that impact so many other areas (uniques, charge generation methods, etc), that more time would be needed than a week to properly implement. With the introduction of the recent Unique with its frenzy charges, there was no confidence that these (and other) implications were thoroughly examined beforehand. There was a definite "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" feeling going on. * One of the game's most appealing design concepts (any character can do anything with anything - especially prior to ascendancy, but less so now) is undermined with every "only X can use" conditional phrase placed on a stat. This makes it easier to balance certain bonuses because you know only "this" subset of characters will be impacted, and in many cases, this is OK. Stuff like charges, though, are a more universal all-characters-use element, that doesn't fall into the OK category, in this case. I also think, if charges are definitely changing, that the following considerations should be made, as if designing them from the ground up: * What are charges for? (temporary boost to stats when clearing maps? temporary boosts against tough enemies and single bosses? a stat that you always need (and are expected) to maintain to keep your strength or defenses where they "need to be"?) * How fast do you need to generate them, how long do they need to last to be worthwhile to bother with maintaining, and what sources are needed to generate/maintain them in the context where they are useful to a player? Are there enough mechanisms in the game to allow the use of the charges in the manner expected? * Are new skills that generate charges a good idea? (such as a skill that generates endurance charges when you take damage, so as you are getting hit you get tougher - Ascendant Juggernaut gets this as part of a constant trait.) * Are new skills that consume charges a good idea? (making a trade-off of keeping the benefits of the charges in check against the bonuses provided by consuming them with the skill) * Are there possible new skill tree nodes that could increase the variety of builds using different charges? Perhaps two nodes near marauder that can each convert one Endurance Charge into either a Power Charge or Frenzy charge, respectively (two near witch that convert a power charge into the other two, and two near Ranger that convert a Frenzy charge into the other two). (similar to the +30 stat node clusters around the tree, but obviously not just adding a charge, they're direct conversions of existing charges, so it's more of a trade-off) There could be nodes that add bonuses to different charge types, or entirely change what charges do! There is tons of room for creativity here. As per status effects, I don't know the original intent for each of them. Were they simply added thematically? When are they supposed to be useful or something you want to build around? How long does each status ailment have to last to feel "worth it"? Are status ailments really REALLY meant to be a bonus to doing really high damage and crits, OR are they something that should benefit people that can't kill enemies that fast, and want to instead add effects to them that make them easier to kill, or make it harder to kill the player? If I were designing status effects, I'd be adding status effects to reliably augment attacks of those who aren't killing enemies through high damage anyway... maybe that's just me. In-depth Status Consideration
Spoiler
I know the changes being discussed now are the chance to apply, and duration of status effects, but in my examination, I went a little deeper into why the status exists, and possible other considerations. Implementing some of the deeper changes would be a more radical adjustment of the status effect system, so I'm not optimistic on their chances for wide-spread acceptance.
Cold Damage (weakest of the damage types) * Chill - This one is the defensive/utility status. Slowing enemies down as they approach gives you a measure of safety for staying away from monsters and you can get in more attacks. Who needs to chill enemies? People who can't kill them fast. (if the problem with chill is making bosses too slow when combined with other sources of slow like temporal chains, put a cap on the maximum speed reduction a boss can receive. This cap could be different for each boss, and modified as needed) * Freeze - This one is the powerful extreme of chill. (I like how it has these 2 stages) Stopping packs of monsters in their tracks as they close in on you and then killing a frozen enemy shatters them (also great against necromancers, to remove some corpses from the equation.) Freezing enemies fits against random enemies, but not bosses so much - Maybe a split-second stun that they break through nearly instantly, but may interrupt their attacks. Electrical Damage (most random damage type) * Shock - Shock always seemed awkward to me. Electrical damage is built around randomness of damage, from super low, to super high non-crit crits. I guess the status effect of shock increases the "low" damage hits, and amplifies the high damage, making it more reliable. I've always associated electrical damage with lightning bolt strikes, Very high, quick damage that homes in on a target (positive/negative electrons) and conducts to other targets (the Arc skill does a good job of conveying electrical damage in how it mechanically works, but the mana cost always annoyed me due to the randomness of electrical damage), and tazer gun stunning (and fork-in-electrical-socket frying). With all that in mind, (static)shock could have an additional built-in intermittent stun type effect, over a longer period of time. When an enemy that is shocked tries to attack or occasionally as they're moving, it could "backfire", preventing the attack and they receive a static shock instead, AND/OR when a shocked enemy hits you, they receive a static shock as retaliatory damage (non-reflectable, technically self-inflicted). (I realize the retaliatory damage thing is a lot like lightning thorns, and would be quite dangerous to players that attack quickly, so I'm of the opinion that this part of the status would only afflict monsters, not players) The current status effect causing a target to take more damage from all attacks doesn't feel like it fits the theme, maybe just to me (it fits the idea of cold a lot more to me - flick someone's frozen ear in winter... and in general, cold makes things more brittle, but chill/freeze has enough as is). Physical Damage * Stun - I don't think stun is enough of a status for default physical damage. I'd add bleeding - no gems or uniques required, though they could augment the damage or length of bleed effect (be it internal for crushing damage, or external for slashing/piercing) I'd also separate crushing, slashing, piercing to give innate bonus "chance to" effects: Crushing: lower enemy attack power (basically: break enemy bones and bruise their muscles) Slashing: maim (think hamstringing (too much like chill?)) Piercing: higher chance for status effects, and slightly higher damage done by Damage over time effects caused by all additional damage types done with the same attack, since lots of piercing attacks and builds focus on elemental or poison (this includes higher bleed - and ranged attacks benefit, since the enemies are usually moving toward you and are now bleeding more) This would be a slight melee buff, making nearby enemies less dangerous as they fight toe-to-toe with them, (and it helps ranged builds a little too.) Fire Damage * Ignite - doesn't fit this pattern... it's in the damage over time category, like bleed and poison (are those much different now?) Fire spreads - I mean, that's one of the first things I think of when I think of bad things about fire, so having built-in proliferation seems like a way to make ignite unique on its own (even though the proliferation thing can be added to other things via other means) Maybe add a very short-range blinding aura to the afflicted target to blind nearby enemies, due to the smoke from the fire - there's the whole "fire burns bright" thing too. Also, heat melts metal things, cooks flesh, scorches/chars organic things, makes metal expand, and evaporates liquids (among other things). I haven't given enough thought to how this could translate into PoE gameplay, but there's room for a more creative status effect here. Chaos Damage * Poison? I don't think they consider poison to be the status ailment of chaos, like ignite is to fire, although poison is chaos damage. I think a lot more could be done with "Chaos" damage, as the name implies... maybe causing random status ailments, bonus damage, reversing the effects of buffs on the enemy, could cause fear... I could go on. PS: In a game so filled with "corruption", I'm surprised there isn't a Corruption/Incorruptible system of some sort in the game regarding the player character's body, perhaps providing tempting mutations with trade-offs... you could accept the mutations along with their downsides, or keep yourself pure and get none of the mutation benefits or drawbacks, and rather get a purity buff of some sort (like bonus resist chaos damage) for resisting the influence of whatever is causing the mutations. (This is sorta present in the older uniques, and even the vaal orb stuff, but this goes deeper, perhaps you already have something like this planned, but that's where my thoughts go with this game in particular.) |
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goodbye our lovely dovely little sweet rectangular split arrow it was great knowing you even for little time
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Some of the jewels enable skills that are completely terribad and you remove the vendor because they "triviialise" uniques?
Look GGG at some point you have to realize trading is a horrible experience in your game and taking away vendors instead of working on them just hurts the leveling experience. Having to trade while leveling is the absolute worst. |
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Frenzy charges NEED the global more mod. especially since neither frenzy or power charges would scale dot properly with your intended attempt at removing build flexibility which has been PoE's selling point since day one.
Adding an exclusive more spell dmg mod to power charges does the same thing, and considering its been a fair requirement for crit wanders let alone other attack based builds it just feels like a special slap in the face with a wet glove. As far as the jewel vendor which is a sorely needed idea for some builds simply make it so everything it sells is Corrupted and unusable for recipes to get new unique items and make it so any jewels sold by the vendor pre-tag it as found + identified so it wont count for achievements/ chalenges etc. (ps. give us usable training dummies for the hideout....) How many arrows does it take to steal the sun?
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" ya but that is for max effect. at least there is no minimum threshold so you can still get a chill/shock even if its low in power. that at least allows you to benefit from mechanics vs chilled/shocked bosses, like hypothermia |
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bla bla bla everyone on about charges here. i am more interested in those unique jewels.
" Someone here who can explain this? I don't get it. Will all the threshold jewels be available from a quest now? What does this have to do with ssf? I'm confused. |
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" 1) yes (or at least the majority). 2) because a ssf cant trade for them, nothing more Last edited by Chrislor#2926 on Aug 1, 2017, 5:08:05 PM
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On Jewels, Threshold Jewels have always felt "bad" to me since inception. Where most skills get tweaks and buffs and stuff for free... you decided if people want to play *these* skills, they have to also devote jewel slots to them.
If Threshold Jewels must be "a thing", and there won't be a shop selling them, then I wouldn't make them drop like they do now. I'd make a new currency/orb that can be applied to a skill gem that will transform it into a Threshold Jewel of that skill. (I know, eww, ANOTHER new currency? We can't handle what we have... and I'd agree, but this seems like a simple solution to Threshold Jewels, to me.) |
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" For how long do you play PoE? That was a very interesting read; I'm uploading - and quoting - your insight on a sort of Player's Manifesto that I'm trying to set up. (It's under the Feedback&Sugestion thread) Back to The Melee (Reaving Insight): view-thread/1240462
Fusion Skill Engineering: view-thread/1095291 |
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