Post by drunkensolamnic on Sept 30, 2017 8:48:47 GMT -5
I've taken this tree up to the 4th tier and I'm having a very hard time telling any difference in performance. While it is possible that maybe the stamina regen and cululative damage decrease is not working, I think its just more apt that the ability isn't tuned properly to keep up with the flavor of the higher level dungeons.
I would suggest that maybe the block bonus should start at 2v1 with +1 and work up every 3 creatures at T3, then +1 for every 2 creatures at T4, and then +1 for every 1 creature at T5.
As a note on general dungeon construction; they are perpetually in overwhelming odds at the higher levels. Even when in a situation of 1 for 1 spawns, the NPCs seem to have DR values equal to shield users while they themselves are duel wielding, said duel wielders have AB on par with PCs that are using only 1 weapon, and tend to have significant HP pools, capping this off the dodge value these NPCs enjoy (without seeming to sacrifice DR) means that they may only be struck once every few rounds. This means as the rounds go on, the NPCs are throwing exponentially more attacks and damage potential in comparison to the PC they are spawned to match.
The general feeling/frustration I've been left with is feeling like everything past the desert areas needs to just be grenaded into oblivion as fast as possible or hit with as much unavoidable damage as possible before they have enough time to kill the party. The rate and scale of this DPS race has shifted up to the point where a fight can go from "okay" to "oh fuck" before anyone can respond on their six second timers. I have found even in heavy armor, with block mode enabled, I can go from full health to on the ground in less than 1 round due to the sheer number of incoming attacks from just 2-3 NPCs.
Some of this seems to be the way the attacks pull armor rolls. Once incoming attacks move past say, six a round.. it seems I never roll just 1 minimum armor roll. I feel as if the armor checks feed back to the attacks coming in in pusles, maybe very 2 seconds. So I get 3 different armor rolls in the round perhaps. If my 3 opponents are duel wielders that means I'm looking at 18 incoming attacks, so if i roll poorly in the first pulse, it seems like I eat 8-10 attacks on that one crappy armor roll (which is enough to kill me half the time) before I get to use a new roll on the next set of attacks. I may be wrong about how this works, but its the experience i'm having. I don't think at this point its an illusion of RNG at play, because it happens with far more frequence than 20-chains or 1-chains on the RNG when the varience is far wider; it also happens with higher armor rolls. I've seen 8 attacks bounce off a roll of 40 out of 44; its just given the general damage level per swing of NPCs that its far easier to end up shredded on a repeated armor roll than saved by it.
TL;DR: My experience level 60+ (and part of my burn out) has been that the feeling of the content is similar to vanilla NWN. Where huge mobs of 20-spam are used to answer ridiculous builds with ACs over 70, and its honestly just a matter of HP soaking the mobs until big AOE damage (magic) can neutralize it. A return to design like the ice-caverns that are 45-55 would be refreshing, where some foes are big meat-wads that hit hard but are easy to hit, some hav ehigh dodge, some have DR, some hit at a tickle but have special abilities that make them dangerous to ignore (cave troll rock-throwing). Also, Overwhelming Odds in the block tree seems to be under performing.
I would suggest that maybe the block bonus should start at 2v1 with +1 and work up every 3 creatures at T3, then +1 for every 2 creatures at T4, and then +1 for every 1 creature at T5.
As a note on general dungeon construction; they are perpetually in overwhelming odds at the higher levels. Even when in a situation of 1 for 1 spawns, the NPCs seem to have DR values equal to shield users while they themselves are duel wielding, said duel wielders have AB on par with PCs that are using only 1 weapon, and tend to have significant HP pools, capping this off the dodge value these NPCs enjoy (without seeming to sacrifice DR) means that they may only be struck once every few rounds. This means as the rounds go on, the NPCs are throwing exponentially more attacks and damage potential in comparison to the PC they are spawned to match.
The general feeling/frustration I've been left with is feeling like everything past the desert areas needs to just be grenaded into oblivion as fast as possible or hit with as much unavoidable damage as possible before they have enough time to kill the party. The rate and scale of this DPS race has shifted up to the point where a fight can go from "okay" to "oh fuck" before anyone can respond on their six second timers. I have found even in heavy armor, with block mode enabled, I can go from full health to on the ground in less than 1 round due to the sheer number of incoming attacks from just 2-3 NPCs.
Some of this seems to be the way the attacks pull armor rolls. Once incoming attacks move past say, six a round.. it seems I never roll just 1 minimum armor roll. I feel as if the armor checks feed back to the attacks coming in in pusles, maybe very 2 seconds. So I get 3 different armor rolls in the round perhaps. If my 3 opponents are duel wielders that means I'm looking at 18 incoming attacks, so if i roll poorly in the first pulse, it seems like I eat 8-10 attacks on that one crappy armor roll (which is enough to kill me half the time) before I get to use a new roll on the next set of attacks. I may be wrong about how this works, but its the experience i'm having. I don't think at this point its an illusion of RNG at play, because it happens with far more frequence than 20-chains or 1-chains on the RNG when the varience is far wider; it also happens with higher armor rolls. I've seen 8 attacks bounce off a roll of 40 out of 44; its just given the general damage level per swing of NPCs that its far easier to end up shredded on a repeated armor roll than saved by it.
TL;DR: My experience level 60+ (and part of my burn out) has been that the feeling of the content is similar to vanilla NWN. Where huge mobs of 20-spam are used to answer ridiculous builds with ACs over 70, and its honestly just a matter of HP soaking the mobs until big AOE damage (magic) can neutralize it. A return to design like the ice-caverns that are 45-55 would be refreshing, where some foes are big meat-wads that hit hard but are easy to hit, some hav ehigh dodge, some have DR, some hit at a tickle but have special abilities that make them dangerous to ignore (cave troll rock-throwing). Also, Overwhelming Odds in the block tree seems to be under performing.
