Eternity Graze is a terrible mechanic

[luj1]

The graze thing is bad but its not the worst offense

Obsidian (with PoE) and inXile (with Numenera) have collectively brought upon the worst, anti-RPG mechanics of the last 20 years. These people didn't know the fuck they were doing


EDIT: also because Infinitron is attracted to my posts like flies to dogshit here's a message

Spoiler

you can suck my dick you low standard cuck

 

[Agame]

It's not about that (in my opinion).

I am not saying 'graze' by itself is the worst mechanic in the world, though as already stated the damage roll already covers this mechanic far more elegantly, for example I think what Sawyer did to the spell system is far, far worse! But its a symptom of a larger problem and when you fill a game with these types of "feel good" mechanics you end up with something like, well... Pillars of Eternity.

 

[Sacred82]

Grazing is a great mechanic across the board in Pillars, because it allows for different builds, especially when it comes to CC abilities and spells. Just grazing something with a high Int character is the same as hitting it with a neutral Int character. As far as damage goes, you can have high Per/ low Mgt characters or the other way round.

If anything they should have removed misses. Apparently people complained about being taken down by grazes - the very reason grazes were put in in the first place.

 

[Ismaul]

Since when is having multiple outcomes for a roll worse than a binary one?

FFS people! This is complexity that has a direct and meaningful impact on gameplay, allowing for scalable rewards for accuracy investment / different weapons. Graze chance is pure incline when the system supports it well. Much like criticals.

 

[Darth Roxor]

as a professional cowpoke, i think grazing is very important

 

[sser]

as a professional cowpoke, i think grazing is very important

Real question is when will we get weaning?

 

[Neanderthal]

Course I'd never use graze in a tabletop session.

as a professional cowpoke

Moo means moo.

 

[aweigh]

I dunno, I never found myself wishing for a graze mechanic in all the zillion other RPGs I played before PoE, and I gotta say that post-PoE I don't find myself wishing for the mechanic in other games either. I'm not saying graze mechanic is completely useless, just that maybe it's not something that mattered much?

In fact I'd completely forgotten grazes existed until I opened this thread. There's far worse to complain about in PoE if you want to complain about stuff. Graze mechanic is like something invented by someone who just likes stuffing the ruleset with rules, however the person is smart enough that it doesn't worsen the game... but it doesn't make it better either.

 

[J_C]

Graze was introduced for one reason alone: casuals were butthurt that their character misses a lot, and didn't feel badass enough in their arrpegees. So they introduced grazing. Thanks to that, characters hit most of the time, although they barely make any damage.

 

[Daidre]

I actually laughed at Deadfire patch-notes for TB mode:

• Characters will Graze on attack rolls of 1-49 in Turn-Based mode instead of 25-49.

Looks like all amazing strategists who asked for TB do not like to miss 5 rounds in row.

 

[aweigh]

wtf graze on 1-49? So you always have a 50% chance of grazing?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I actually laughed at Deadfire patch-notes for TB mode:

• Characters will Graze on attack rolls of 1-49 in Turn-Based mode instead of 25-49.

Looks like all amazing strategist who asked for TB do not like to miss 5 rounds in row.

The problem is that it made turn based mode too slow.

 

[Daidre]

As far as I understand POE system you'll have some chance to miss in TB only when your Accuracy < enemy Deflection (or other target defense).

 

[Ismaul]

wtf graze on 1-49? So you always have a 50% chance of grazing?

I'm guessing that's on the final attack result. To the raw d100 roll, you add the player's accuracy, substract the enemy's defence, and add in bonuses and penalties. So it's not always 50% chance to graze, it might be much lower or higher depending on if you're at a disadvantage or advantage vs the enemy.

 

[Ismaul]

Also, the grazing mechanic isn't about never missing to help feeble-minded casuals, it's about granularity of outcome.

 

[Elex]

It's not about that (in my opinion). Look at it this way: you have a 30% chance to hit. You roll in 1-30 range, you hit. You roll 31-100, you missed. It doesn't matter if you roll 31 or 99, even though 31 is a very close call and 99 is that cross-eyed gunner from Spaceballs. You can say tough luck or you can create a graze range for close rolls for half the damage. Conceptually, it's no different than a critical range, so you'd have something like 1-5 (+ modifier) critical, 6-30 hit, 31-40 graze, 41-100 miss. This design won't make "everyone a winner" but will reward close calls in a reasonable way.

then you have an “close to graze” range for 1/4 damage etc etc etc

and then people will realize that all that stuff was already integrated in the damage roll of an hit.

 

[Daidre]

First POE patchnotes are weirdly fascinating for me for exactly this reason.
When you look at them historically you can see Sawyer dealing with all pitfalls in his system that were solved in D&D years or even decades ago.

 

[Ismaul]

then you have an “close to graze” range for 1/4 damage etc etc etc

and then people will realize that all that stuff was already integrated in the damage roll of an hit.

If grazes are stupid, why have crits? Same reasoning applies, why not just understand crits as the times when you roll max damage in the weapon's damage range?

Also, in PoE's system anyways, effects' durations vary depending on the type of hit: full duration on a hit, 1/2 on a graze, x2 on a crit (IIRC). So let's integrate that into hits. If we have only miss and hits, then effects' durations will have a range. Spell effects become unpredictable, unreliable, and your skill has no incidence on the duration. The alternative would be to always have a fixed duration. Oh yeah look we improved it by dumbing it down either way!

 

[Daidre]

All "graze for 0.5 duration dots" logic fell apart for me in Deadfire. They removed spell grazes entirely and Accuracy bonus from spell level. With general nerf of Accuracy buffs across the board all pure debuff spells looks like waste of time on PoTD - you kinda need to debuff to be able to apply defuff fallacy.

 

[Ismaul]

Bad implementation of a mechanic doesn't make the mechanic itself bad.

 

[user]

Spells missing is a much more disgusting mechanic and needs its own thread.

 

[Ismaul]

Anyways, the main point was: What about crits? Why have them at all, if they can just be understood as rolling max damage in the damage range, much like graze would be min damage?

If the argument against grazes is that it's pointless because it's already integrated into the damage roll, then the argument is also one against crits.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

it is not the same argument at all. Crits have an actual gameplay interpretation, that you hit some weak spot. Graze is basically you hit no matter what or at least more often than not.

Graze is you barely hitting them, it's the opposite of a critical.

 

[Ismaul]

it is not the same argument at all. Crits have an actual gameplay interpretation, that you hit some weak spot. Graze is basically you hit no matter what or at least more often than not.

Well, you could just say you hit a weak spot when you do max damage.

But if we admit that crits have an actual gameplay interpretation, why not do the same for grazes? By definition, grazes are when you "scrape or touch something lightly in passing", producing "a minor scratch or abrasion". Hey, an actual gameplay interpretation!

 

[HeatEXTEND]

If grazes are stupid, why have crits?

Crits are fun and can be dramatic. Not saying grazes are inherently a bad mechanic, just comparing them to crits (hit or miss) is dumb.