Eternity Graze is a terrible mechanic

[Yosharian]

Graze feels divorced from the tabletop origin of these types of games.

A hit feels exciting. I hit! Yes! Woops fill the air. Fists are bumped. Damage dice are rolled.

A miss feels bad. Dammit! I missed! Dice are flung across the table in frustration, fists strike tables.

A graze is just... meh. Like porridge, or cricket.

 

[Sacred82]

Graze feels divorced from the tabletop origin of these types of games.

A hit feels exciting. I hit! Yes! Woops fill the air. Fists are bumped. Damage dice are rolled.

A miss feels bad. Dammit! I missed! Dice are flung across the table in frustration, fists strike tables.

A graze is just... meh. Like porridge, or cricket.

I think this is true for PnP, and vidya are just different in that regard, especially if you control a whole party, and you're going to see 100+ attack rolls per combat. The results become more important than moment-to-moment RNG. Watching the numbers (= health) steadily go down is what you're doing most of the time, and you don't need to generate excitement for each character's turn. Spells and other valuable (limited) abilities still generate that excitement because a graze is going to be that much less desirable than a hit or a crit.

 

[Sacred82]

That is bad design in the first place, if you had to make 100 rolls to take anyone down. So, think of graze as a bandaid on cancer.

4 party members, 10 rounds of combat: 40 rolls (at the least)
6 enemies, another 60+ rolls. 10 rounds isn't excessive. If we're talking trash mobs, it may go faster but there may also be more of them. Point being, since you're the one who is paying attention to all of those attack rolls, and frequently too, it's just not the same as controlling one character in PnP and wishing for your one attack roll per turn to succeed. "Loading up" a die by thinking about the result you wish for is a thing in board games, but not in vidya (I'd assume).

 

[Damned Registrations]

It applies in video games too, because some rolls are more important than others.

 

[Sacred82]

Wow.

You do realize that we are not talking about adding up all the enemy and hero rolls, right? This is a discussion that pertains to per character rolls. If you are thinking like that then you are already missing the point. graze is being presented as a solution to a "single" char missing a lot due to bad rolls.

wut

we don't: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...-terrible-mechanic.126925/reply&quote=6075880

if we're talking single character games, like I've said, misses are an ok mechanic. At any rate, yeah you do pay attention to the enemy's hits Especially if a crit is a guaranteed hit with a x2 or x3 damage multiplier.

 

[Sacred82]

First I am not sure where in the OP (which you are referring to) is it saying that he is talking about some kind of total.

that's what that implies, unless you're proposing misses for the player characters and grazes for enemies. IOW inconsistent rules which is exactly the kind of thing we supposedly don't like (for good reason).

He is clearly saying (correctly) that graze is boring.

OP is saying

1) grazes don't have much benefit (which he doesn't Elaborate on)

and 2) yes, grazes are boring

He makes a pretty weak argument for grazes being boring by comparing them to… crits and backstabs, for whatever reason. The thing to compare a graze to would be… a miss. Allegedly the OP never goes "Thank God that missed!". Well yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing you do when you pay attention to enemies' attack rolls. And a devastating enemy attack only grazing you and not fully hitting is still p. sweet, even if it doesn't pass you by completely.

I would counter all that by saying that balance in a single player game is secondary. Interesting is more important. if your game needs to make you feel awesome every round, then the design sucks.

which is really more in line with consistent damage rather than all or nothing damage.​

 

[Sacred82]

Now, you are envisioning a game where a *lot* of misses happen. I am saying that this is bad design already when you need *per* char too many attacks. That already makes things boring.

Maybe it is, maybe not. It is definitely something that happens e.g. in D&D vidya adaptations from early - mid game.

OTOH, if you have an all or nothing system where misses are the exception… well that would actually mean a bloated importance of misses. If the enemy hits 4 times, and you hit 3 times and miss once… big disadvantage due to RNG. Which isn't just frustrating, it's literally overemphasizing missing, when you actually want the player to emphasize hitting. If hits can be expected but misses are the exception, that makes your own hits not very interesting and your own misses frustrating, and it doesn't make the enemy's misses a lot more interesting either. The occasional enemy miss would mean a big advantage, but it's kind of hard to get excited about your enemy fumbling with his sword when in that game world, hits are actually to be expected.

This generally happens when the numbers are allowed to go too big, i.e. too much HP or too large differences between enemy and player stats. Combat is most fun when it is dangerous when each hit from the enemy can severely be detrimental. There is a save reload mechanism just so that you can change the strategy next time if you die too often.

Maybe all or nothing systems are at their best at a ~50/50 distribution. There's reasons why mid level D&D is best D&D. Not a lot of flexibility if you want to keep that rate about constant throughout the game though.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

It is clutter, because there already is a more elegant way to convey the concept of grazes: through damage ranges. E.g. having a damage range of 2-7 and hitting for a 2 is essentially a graze.

I am not sure how this thread survived after this remark. It is the correct one.

 

[Sacred82]

Maybe it is, maybe not. It is definitely something that happens e.g. in D&D vidya adaptations from early - mid game.

However, let us remember that this is all D&D specific. While D&D is an extremely fun system, no one is saying that is the most balanced. trying to balance D&D (a k a 4th edition and PoE) are terrible ideas. That automatically tells you that the designer does not understand why people enjoy these games in the first place. I am not saying that a balanced and fun system is impossible. But rather that D&D is not a good starting point for such a thing.

People enjoy D&D as a tabletop game. PoE did take cues from D&D (by necessity, for the moneyz), but e.g. the attribute system was designed to be different from D&D. In the end it didn't work out exactly as planned - Josh tried to explain in his talk that small attribute bonuses are useful in PoE but they aren't; and there are dump stats as well for most builds. But it's not like they took D&D and said "hey let's turn misses into grazes because muh casuals".

OTOH, if you have an all or nothing system where misses are the exception… well that would actually mean a bloated importance of misses. If the enemy hits 4 times, and you hit 3 times and miss once… big disadvantage due to RNG. Which isn't just frustrating, it's literally overemphasizing missing, when you actually want the player to emphasize hitting. If hits can be expected but misses are the exception, that makes your own hits not very interesting and your own misses frustrating, and it doesn't make the enemy's misses a lot more interesting either. The occasional enemy miss would mean a big advantage, but it's kind of hard to get excited about your enemy fumbling with his sword when in that game world, hits are actually to be expected.

Sure. But if you are the kind of guy who finds randomness interesting then you have to accept that random bad rolls are good too. Which is the example you are using (one miss = losing). This is what AoD is, btw. One crucial miss and you reload.

Random "bad" rolls are simply a part of randomness. They should never have more importance than "good" rolls across the board though. A miss or graze can be the result of a bad roll or of something else; an automatic miss is always the result of a bad roll.

Maybe all or nothing systems are at their best at a ~50/50 distribution. There's reasons why mid level D&D is best D&D. Not a lot of flexibility if you want to keep that rate about constant throughout the game though.

You can keep that constant It takes a lot of balancing. But in the end, it is the best design decision for a randomness based game. Grazes have nothing to do with that. Graze is a coping mechanism when you are either too lazy or too stupid to balance the game to have that ratio of hits to misses.

I didn't say it's impossible, just that it's kind of samey. If towards the end of PoE some characters mostly cause grazes, you can have mitigated the problem by building the character with this in mind, and consistently upping their damage potential or the durations of their CC.

 

[Sacred82]

I didn't say it's impossible, just that it's kind of samey. If towards the end of PoE some characters mostly cause grazes, you can have mitigated the problem by building the character with this in mind, and consistently upping their damage potential or the durations of their CC.

the problem isn't that they graze too often. The problem really is enemy deflection / HP bloat. This is also an issue in D&D, which PoE inherited because at the very bottom it is D&D lite.

welp, bloated deflection will result in grazes unless debuffed. You can do that, and/ or you can raise your damage and duration accordingly to solve the problem. In fact grazes simply offer more flexibility here than an all or nothing system when it comes to character building. You can have a DPS character built around accuracy; to keep your damage consistent you just have to try to stay ahead of the enemy's defense curve. You also have to increase your damage stats every now and then (easy); either that, or keep increasing your attack speed (more difficult).

Option #2 for DPS is to build them around their damage stat and account for your low hit chance; you can't expect crits but lots of grazes. A graze is just a hit with a -50% to damage, while a maxed strength at char creation already gives you +30-33% to damage. If that character is a barb he's almost cancelling the penalty on a graze while raging (+45% to damage) right at the start (+51% as soon as you can pick a class talent). You can still ensure hits with buffs/ debuffs, but the character is effective enough on their own.

Bloat either occurs in all systems with increasing numbers, or that thing called bloat doesn't exist at all. Enemy HP keep rising, and your own HP keep rising as well; but so do other stats on both sides. If enemy stats seem bloated you probably fell behind in several ways.

 

[Sacred82]

How about do not bloat? Easier than building around it, right?

the thing is: we like it when the numbers go up. Even(?) on the Kodex.

Personally I'm not very interested in an RPG with no noticeable progression in terms of capability, even if it's just an illusion of "power" (because enemy capabilities also keep growing).

Where the progression comes from isn't that important; picking up bigger guns in a shooter because your old handgun doesn't do the job anymore against stronger enemies could also be called a result of bloat. The difference here is probably that a different, bigger gun may offer different options other than more damage; that's more like a different spell than a higher attribute. But since other genres have become more stat heavy as well, this just seems to be something gamers generally like.

An RPG with no power progression may not be hard to build, but it would be hard to make it interesting.

 

[Sacred82]

In my opinion the interesting part comes from options not increasing numbers. I want increasing numbers mind you but not too much and not just that. I will get bored of repetitive combat fast. Instead represent progression with more active actions, or abilities that you can use and which are tactically very useful against different opponents.

that's why I was talking about bigger guns vs. smaller guns. A rocket launcher isn't just a stronger handgun; it gives you other options. But then, that is what spells and other abilities do in RPG's.

What I like about RPG's is that they give you new tools all the time; like spells or magic items with a specific effect. Even a sword that inflicts some bonus fire damage may have different uses than a regular sword; not just by being (more) useful against certain enemies, but e.g. to set flammable surfaces on fire (think D:OS). And yet at the same time, you can keep developing the concepts that you came up with during character creation, even if it mostly means you keep pushing those numbers that are fundamental to that character.

One interesting thing in RPG's is to see how your character concept is working out over the course of the game, which is mostly that character getting better at what they started out being good at, and trying to keep up with/ staying ahead of enemies getting better at their thing. In RPG's, we want to define characters; not necessarily to be able to switch between handguns, rocket launchers and melee weapons and being about equally good at using each of them.

 

[Average Manatee]

Weapons in Pillars of Eternity aren't your standard 1d8 like D&D. When base damage is 10-20 it makes sense that you have some chance to still get a 5 with a poor hit. It would not make sense when wielding a 1d8 longsword since you already have 1 damage rolls as a possibility.

Critical Strikes are different from Graze because a Crit exemplifies an exceedingly excellent attack on the part of the defender. Like your enemy being off balance and throwing himself on your sword, or a stab straight through an exposed neck. This doesn't exist for grazes, an exceedingly excellent defense is... a dodge.

I do think in general graze just makes things overly complicated for complications sake. If I can't calculate to a good degree of accuracy chance to hit and average damage per round in my head I feel uncomfortable in an RPG.

 

[BING XI LAO]

If your hit chance is 70% or above then the outcome of hitting a few times is fairly predictable

If you hit chance is 30% or lower, then things start to vary wildly, even with a rather large number of attacks

So the purpose of Grazing was most likely not so much a sop to casuals, but rather to make low hitchance outcomes more consistent. That seems reasonable enough to me.

 

[Sacred82]

Weapons in Pillars of Eternity aren't your standard 1d8 like D&D. When base damage is 10-20 it makes sense that you have some chance to still get a 5 with a poor hit. It would not make sense when wielding a 1d8 longsword since you already have 1 damage rolls as a possibility.

That, and damage bonuses tend to be percentiles. High accuracy means you don't need as much of a damage bonus as a low accuracy character, because most of the time you'll hit for full damage, and maybe you'll even crit regularly for +50% damage. Low accuracy characters OTOH will have to compensate regularly for -50% damage on grazes.

Critical Strikes are different from Graze because a Crit exemplifies an exceedingly excellent attack on the part of the defender. Like your enemy being off balance and throwing himself on your sword, or a stab straight through an exposed neck. This doesn't exist for grazes, an exceedingly excellent defense is... a dodge.

Uh... no. A graze is a graze, like you moving out of the way of a blade but not fast enough to fully avoid it, so you suffer a superficial cut. Never being able to miss/ dodge isn't a simulationist approach ofc, but then again, a system that is comparable to D&D isn't simulationist in the first place. Josh also mentioned in his talk that he thinks it's always been a problem of D&D to try to be simulationist and gamist (and theatrical) at the same time, and PoE was designed to be different in some regards.

If I can't calculate to a good degree of accuracy chance to hit and average damage per round in my head I feel uncomfortable in an RPG.

What I like about Pillars is that you have to watch your characters' performance, and you can only make educated guesses about a character's accuracy and Damage. "Ok, so I took a Hearth Orlan character and maxed their Perception, even took the +1 Perception background, and he's a Rogue/ Fighter/ Monk, so now I have the highest possible starting accuracy. I'll give him one of those +5 accuracy weapons, and I'll make him wield it with one hand. That's the most this character can do for their own accuracy right now. I'll also have the Paladin support him with Zealous Focus ASAP, and I'm going to pick the +6 accuracy talent at the first levelup. I have a cipher/ wizard focusing on debuffs that decrease deflection too. SO NOW I HAVE HIT CHANCE OUT THE ASS. If this character doesn't crit regularly (or constantly on debuffed enemies), something is just wrong with the mechanics."

"Ok, now I'll make a Ranger. I'm going to keep him mostly in the back so let's take a Wood Elf for +5 accuracy. However Perception didn't do that much on my Orlan; I wanted to focus on accuracy at all costs, but that Interrupt rating didn't really do much on a one-handed light weapon. I want this character to use a bow so it's not going to be much better; maybe I'll go with Might and Dexterity instead. Being a Ranger, he still has a good starting accuracy, so I think I'm going to hit with a high damage bonus fairly regularly. I want to use Swift Aim eventually to capitalize on his speed; but that's another -7 to accuracy, so I should only use it on debuffed enemies. Maybe. I'll just have to see how this works out."

"For the front line I want one guy to be a Barbarian. They've got low starting accuracy but can raise their damage stat by raging; so maybe it'll be enough for this character to just graze regularly with a high damage bonus to be an effective off-tank."

But I was not talking about switching equipment but rather being able to use the same equipment with different tactics. Like using abilities or stances or passive talents.

I got what you mean. Your handgun can now blow up vehicles but yeah this also happens in RPG's. "You can now stun enemies with a blow to the head with a melee weapon" (why couldn't I do that before?). Anyway, there's still a progression of power here. Can I stun people and still deliver the same damage (e.g. 'full attack + stun vs. fortitude save')? In that case, definitely a growth in power. Can I only stun people OR deliver damage? Still a growth in power because I can then whack them without getting hit/ interrupted by them, maybe even with a bonus to hit. Even if I can only stun them for one round, that means I'm avoiding damage with that character, while my DPS can whittle them down. Still a growth in power. Not really different from just being able to soak up more damage (via higher HP or Constitution) or from being able to kill them faster with more damage. It's just a different option and potentially more interesting.

Ultimately the question if something feels bloated in a game is just a question of what tools you have. If HP feel bloated, it's because there's not enough going on that cuts into those HP.

 

[Terpsichore]

I agree, it's about time the ruminants switched to meat.

 

[Fairfax]

So the purpose of Grazing was most likely not so much a sop to casuals

It was:

The mechanics I've engineered for PoE were largely based on my experiences watching a wide variety of players run through the RPGs I've worked on from Icewind Dale to F:NV. E.g.: wild damage curves and all or nothing effects regularly frustrate a lot of people. Graze was added to normalize those effects over time. The Miss/Graze/Hit/Crit windows are always the same and I don't think they're notably more complex than variable Crit ranges, Crit multipliers, and rolling to confirm in 3.X.

 

[Beastro]

 

[Sacred82]

So the purpose of Grazing was most likely not so much a sop to casuals

It was:

The mechanics I've engineered for PoE were largely based on my experiences watching a wide variety of players run through the RPGs I've worked on from Icewind Dale to F:NV. E.g.: wild damage curves and all or nothing effects regularly frustrate a lot of people. Graze was added to normalize those effects over time. The Miss/Graze/Hit/Crit windows are always the same and I don't think they're notably more complex than variable Crit ranges, Crit multipliers, and rolling to confirm in 3.X.

lots of players of Icewind Dale and F:NV: casuals

cool story bro

 

[Sacred82]

but yeah this also happens in RPG's. "You can now stun enemies with a blow to the head with a melee weapon" (why couldn't I do that before?).

You could. You could not pull it off effectively though. It's like an amateur trying to jump a car.

hitting people in the head = operating a vehicle? Not really.

And the funny thing here is, we aren't talking about skills. The game presents it as something binary. You couldn't stun people by hitting them in the head if your life depended on it a level ago; now you can.

Anyway, there's still a progression of power here. Can I stun people and still deliver the same damage (e.g. 'full attack + stun vs. fortitude save')? In that case, definitely a growth in power. Can I only stun people OR deliver damage? Still a growth in power because I can then whack them without getting hit/ interrupted by them, maybe even with a bonus to hit. Even if I can only stun them for one round, that means I'm avoiding damage with that character, while my DPS can whittle them down. Still a growth in power. Not really different from just being able to soak up more damage (via higher HP or Constitution) or from being able to kill them faster with more damage. It's just a different option and potentially more interesting.

The argument is that it should be always possible to kill them faster by bypassing their active defense. HP or AC are not like that. They grow with level or equipment way too fast *unnecessarily*.

AC is not an active defense? AC cannot be bypassed? Hitting something with a weapon in D&D means exactly that you bypassed their AC, and there are ways to ensure that/ increase the probability of it happening. Systems where armor means damage reduction may also give the player tools to bypass that; either that or you have to come up with ways to maxmimize damage per hit. How fast anything in the game 'grows' is a matter of balance; HP only get bloated in comparison to the things that reduce HP. Or bypass HP, which is absolutely possible too, e.g. save or die spells.

Ultimately the question if something feels bloated in a game is just a question of what tools you have. If HP feel bloated, it's because there's not enough going on that cuts into those HP.

Not really. Bloating is an objective measure irrespective of what tools you have. Bloating can also occur to tools.

HP growth is objective. Bloat is not.

Let's say all characters' HP grow by exactly 5 points per level. Monsters are also divided into levels, and their HP grow by a fixed amount too. That's objectively measurable.

How hard it is to kill some combinations of monsters which are using some combination of their abilities in some environment by some players running some combination of player characters using some combination of stats and equipment isn't and can't be objective fact. There are a few way too fucking many variables here. Enter RNG into the picture and all you have is a gut feeling that "this can't be right".

One player, or any number of players, may notice that fights tend to drag on longer the further they progress in the game. Let's just assume that's an objective fact (we took their time). One question is now if those players are using the tools that they could use to end fights sooner or if those tools just aren't there.

The other question is if fights getting longer later in the game really is a problem or not. Maybe late game combat does take longer to resolve; however both players and monsters have way more tools and options at their disposal. Tactically, the fights are getting more elaborate; but do players find it interesting or do they feel things got bloated?

 

[Elex]

Weapons in Pillars of Eternity aren't your standard 1d8 like D&D. When base damage is 10-20 it makes sense that you have some chance to still get a 5 with a poor hit. It would not make sense when wielding a 1d8 longsword since you already have 1 damage rolls as a possibility.

Critical Strikes are different from Graze because a Crit exemplifies an exceedingly excellent attack on the part of the defender. Like your enemy being off balance and throwing himself on your sword, or a stab straight through an exposed neck. This doesn't exist for grazes, an exceedingly excellent defense is... a dodge.

I do think in general graze just makes things overly complicated for complications sake. If I can't calculate to a good degree of accuracy chance to hit and average damage per round in my head I feel uncomfortable in an RPG.

“we increase damage of the weapons and we add a mechanics that reduce the damage you deal when you hit”

 

[ColonelTeacup]

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

Wow, kinda rude, maybe he just wants to be friends?

 

[Sacred82]

Weapons in Pillars of Eternity aren't your standard 1d8 like D&D. When base damage is 10-20 it makes sense that you have some chance to still get a 5 with a poor hit. It would not make sense when wielding a 1d8 longsword since you already have 1 damage rolls as a possibility.

Critical Strikes are different from Graze because a Crit exemplifies an exceedingly excellent attack on the part of the defender. Like your enemy being off balance and throwing himself on your sword, or a stab straight through an exposed neck. This doesn't exist for grazes, an exceedingly excellent defense is... a dodge.

I do think in general graze just makes things overly complicated for complications sake. If I can't calculate to a good degree of accuracy chance to hit and average damage per round in my head I feel uncomfortable in an RPG.

“we increase damage of the weapons and we add a mechanics that reduce the damage you deal when you graze”

ftfy

also "we make damage bonuses percentages because people wielding a longsword with both hands and adding more damage from strength than the weapon does is extremely retarded"

 

[Daidre]

Also "we made damage bonuses in percents, most of them additive, and some multiplicative, but there is no way but testing to say which are. So +45% damage you see on your so cool superb weapon is really more like ~20% in best case cause its additive with Might, Style feats, modals and priest buffs. Or and if you are rogue with +50-100% sneak - it is like 5-10% and Might is your damp stat".

 

[Sacred82]

Also "we made damage bonuses in percents, most of them additive, and some multiplicative, but there is no way but testing to say which are. So +45% damage you see on your so cool superb weapon is really more like ~20% in best case cause its additive with Might, Style feats, modals and priest buffs.

plz tell me more about those multiplicative damage bonuses in Pillars that you can't identify as such

apart from that your problem is that muh loot isn't awsum enough apparently and you don't like testing things for yourself: casual detected

Or and if you are rogue with +50-100% sneak - it is like 5-10% and Might is your damp stat".

lolol thief classes can do damage in dis game with weapons even without high strength xD

cool sterry brah