I must say @Gothural makes a good point. That's why rebalancing is so difficult. Several spells, items, AI problems even, etc. (Gothural pointed some of them) make combat irrelevant, whatever the difficulty setting. In that regard, rebalancing one ability but not the other ones seems unfair. But I see the Wizard Slayer is getting some improvement (Wizard Slayer will now apply 25% casting failure on hit) so we may see other changes of the kind in the future.
(The stoneskin and mirror image thing was apparently intentional on our part, but we're looking at it more closely to see if it's actually what we want to keep.)
Unless it can be perfectly fixed to not bypass Mirror Image only when an image is struck, I would ask that there be no more hard-coded changes to this implementation. There is no reason to change Stoneskins back, it is entirely mod-able now, but it does require a default = bypass, unless you're going to make toggling it even easier.
We currently have the option of always-bypass, and have the ability to mod it back to its previous never-bypass, complete with the bugged behavior of striking the real target among mirror images not inflicting the poison.
Stoneskin should not allow a bypass in this specific case of poison, but again, the current implementation allows us to mod whether or not stoneskins protects against on-hit effects on a case-by-case basis.
I think it's probably because the Blackguard is something the dev team added, as was the (official) ability to play an assassin from level 1. That created certain balance issues that did not exist in 2000, even if the ability did. While there are many other broken things in the game, they are not the result of anything Beamdog's done. Poison Weapon, in those particular cases, is.
I share your concerns @Adul, but I don't think we are there yet. Add in the 0-weight throwing daggers, the easier-to-find magic magic weapon in Irenicus dungeon, and the 'clean' UI, and I am getting nervous, but I think that is why we have this beta period to give feedback, and there is every sign BeamDog are listening, even if they don't have to agree with everything we say
I think it's probably because the Blackguard is something the dev team added, as was the (official) ability to play an assassin from level 1. That created certain balance issues that did not exist in 2000, even if the ability did. While there are many other broken things in the game, they are not the result of anything Beamdog's done. Poison Weapon, in those particular cases, is.
Not to mention Arrows of Detonation: -They proc on-hit effects (including poison) in the entire AoE -They are unlimited in BG:EE -They are very limited in BG2 (Randomly dropped one by one as a rare random drop, and EE added up to 20 of them in the ToB EE NPC quests) which balanced the interaction.
The fact that poison weapon became available in BG:EE (and that it is so strong even at early levels) made it quite unbalanced, because one or two such arrows can kill about any group of enemy. At least in ToB you need 4-5 of them for the same result.
This better not be one of those slippery slope things, Beamdog. Don't you start "balancing" BG for me.
You are an experienced player, then you can mod it (SCS etc...) that might balance it as you want and it will be fine for you. If you were a casual player, you might not want to use mods at first, and such gamebreaking skills might as well ruin your game pleasure.
@Gotural , you mentioned another few examples of alledgedly overpowered abilities, such as spell immunity or chain contingency. These are strong as well but their potential is not AS obvious as that of poison weapon and requires quite a bit of metagaming knowledge to be used to their full potential. And when you have that kind of knowledge then you should be willing to use mods. Inquisitor dispel is indeed blatantly OP just like poison weapon and should be next to be an "official nerf"
This better not be one of those slippery slope things, Beamdog. Don't you start "balancing" BG for me.
Why not? They are the DM. You're the player. The DM makes the rules...
Because its not their place to balance what was already made by Bioware. Beamdog are caretakers and to begin "balancing" overpowered and cheesy tactics that have been in place for 15+ years treads outside the territory of enhancing the game and into changing it.
I personally think if we go around nerfing everything, we will lose some of the flavour of the game. We will end up with a clinically balanced game that has no soul.
Leave some imbalances in! If you had to really balance everything, you would need to remove or replace Shapechange, Timestop, the Robe of Vecna (easily obtainable) and many other abilities already mentioned.
You would end up with a game so markedly different to the original that it becomes more of a mod. You will start getting compared to Improved Anvil, which also selectively nerfs things that the author does not like.
There's no reason to create a new mechanic when an existing one will suffice. In this case, the Blackguard shines a spotlight on a problem the Poison Weapon ability has to begin with.
I disagree. Context matters. The Poison Weapon ability is FAR more unbalanced for a Blackguard than it is for an Assassin. Yes, you could reuse it, but is that a good idea?
I also think you should rather look at balancing kits instead of abilities. Poison Weapon is less overpowered for an Assassin than it is for a Blackguard. In fact, for an Assassin, I'd say it is just right.
Suggestion: Do something else for the Blackguard, even if you have to make a new ability. Remove the AOE poison effect from arrows. Allow poison to scale in damage and allow it to effect a target more than once.
This better not be one of those slippery slope things, Beamdog. Don't you start "balancing" BG for me.
Why not? They are the DM. You're the player. The DM makes the rules...
Other than it not being their place to do it, and so on...
As far as I'm concerned, "balance" is one of those modern myths that's responsible for a lot of newer games turning out to be a bland, horrible mess. It removes creativity and excitement and replaces them with dumb overpolished sameness. Fortunately, AD&D is very far from being "balanced", and so is Baldur's Gate.
Hell, in Baldur's Gate II, half the monster population utilizes some manner of cheese tactics, and chances are you'll need to resort to cheese yourself in order to bring them down. That's beautiful, it encourages players to think outside the box, and it would never pass the QA stage at a modern AAA game studio.
After giving it some thought, I also don't think this is a good change. Part of the charm of poison weapon as an assassin was to, for example, equip some regular old darts, and then looking at that wonderful poison stacking.
If you want to balance poison weapon for the blackguard, here's what you do: make a copy of poison weapon, assign it to the blackguard, and start changing stuff.
While I'm all for retaining a poison weapon closer to the current implementation, remember that poison weapon did not always stack, and the Robe of Vecna, along with many other favorite goodies, came from a bonus merchant available only in the collectors edition. The Defender of Easthaven is the most popular item available from the second merchant, available through a different promo. I think the last Bioware patch to the game finally made them available to all, but clearly the game was balanced without these pay-to-win(-with-ingame-currency) items.
That said, I am nervous about successive waves of 'balance' blending out the game. We should temper those concerns with the addition of a whole new class and mechanic in the same patch!
The Robe of Vecna is easily available in all EE installations though. So, for the EE game, the Robe of Vecna combined with timestop, the amulet of power, and improved alacrity means most BG2 fights are a cakewalk. Only enemies that are resistant to Timestop are a problem. Everyone else is toast.
So, where does it stop? I think the game should be balanced from the point of view of fun, not MMORPG-like "all class combinations must be equally powerful". BG2 is not a competitive multiplayer game. It doesn't really matter if the Sorcerer has higher average damage output than a jester. It matters that both have their place in well designed parties.
If there is a kit or class which would provide too much power to a well designed party, then that kit, as a whole, should be rebalanced.
As it stands, will a single assassin make a BG1 or BG2 party overpowered? It may make a BG1 party overpowered because poison currently does not scale, but an assassin is nowhere near as powerful as a Blackguard is.
And this is precisely why I don't think there is an optimal solution that involves using the same poison ability for both classes. In combat, a Blackguard is more effective than an Assassin.
@Ancalagon44 I totally agree, balance changes should aim to make the game more fun, not simply more balanced. That's why we're looking at the math again.
I say again, this particular change was necessary. There are enemies you'll face in the expansion that use this ability, and that forced us to look at the balance of the ability--not only from the perspective of the user, but also from the perspective of the target.
Removing the stacking is one step toward making it fair. Adding a scaling progression is another. The save penalties are a step toward making it fun. Changing the initial damage from an over-time effect to an instant effect adds dynamic to the ability, which is also designed to make it more fun to use.
@Dee I'd still say that if you need to balance the difficulty of SoD enemies, it would be less intrusive to change the ability for those enemies, rather than for everyone. Player classes don't need to be fair in Baldur's Gate, that's part of what makes the game fun.
As for the "Balance is a lie!" feeling: balance just means good design.
Strongly disagree. "Fun" means good design. "Balance", more often than not, means taking every class, ability, spell, monster, and number in a game and making sure they are on a sameish level, which makes the game boring, therefore the opposite of "fun", and indeed, the opposite of good design.
I've seen it happen way too many times to associate the word "balance" with anything positive from a design perspective at this point.
If every enemy took triple damage from fire damage, why would you ever memorize any acid or ice or magic damage spells? The players who always play Invokers and just stroll through every encounter without sweating might complain "don't nerf my fire spells!!" but that would be a crappy game. Rebalancing that to make the game give more interesting and fun challenges would be a good thing.
There are plenty of spells in Baldur's Gate that are useless from a gameplay standpoint, and a whole bunch more that are far beyond their spell level in power. If you start worrying about making them all equally viable for their spell level, you'll not only lose a lot of hair in the process, but will also work towards making the game boring.
And for the record, I don't think I've ever played an assassin, what I'm worried about here is the principle of the thing.
Good design isn't just about balance or fun or looking cool. Good design is the gestalt of all three of those things.
Think of it like a triangle. On one side you have fun, on the second side you have balance, and on the third side you have looking cool. If you go all the way to one of those three sides, the other two sides are going to suffer. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. What you want is a mechanic that is balanced (as in, doesn't remove the challenge or risk from using that mechanic), fun (as in, it's satisfying to use while you're using it), and looks awesome when it works (as in, someone watching you use the mechanic will be impressed by your amazingness).
The current implementation of Poison Weapon looks awesome, and is reasonably fun, but it's not balanced. What we're trying to do is bring the ability back to the center of that triangle, without sacrificing the fun and without compromising too heavily on looking cool.
@Dee Will you guys do this with other abilities too? When will you stop? Should I start backing up my game folder in case the next update overhauls all wizard spells?
Given the amount of time we're spending on just this one ability, I don't think you have much to worry about us suddenly overhauling the entire game. Like I said, the change to this particular ability was necessary because of its use in the expansion, but justified because of its unusual potency. There may be abilities, spells, and classes that also justify a rebalancing effort, but they're not necessary.
Seriously, think about it for a second. Is there any other class that gets an ability at level 1 that lets them deal 30 extra damage per hit and also disrupts spellcasting for several rounds?
If the Assassin's Poison Weapon ability being properly balanced makes that class too weak, then Poison Weapon wasn't the problem with the Assassin in the first place.
@Adul have you used the current version of the ability in-game yet? I worry that this discussion may be diving too deep into theory and panic, with very little practical experience with the change itself.
@Dee No, I went too far off-topic and started discussing what Beamdog's role in the Enhanced Editions should be, which is certainly not what this thread is about. Granted, I never used poison weapon with an assassin, so I wouldn't know if the change made it better or worse. But I guess I'll try it at some point, it sounds fun.
Lots of effects don't stack. I feel that poison not stacking is not big deal.
Many of us go to lengths to make the game harder. It should be hard. Maybe vanilla poison should be made available in story mode and scale by difficulty instead.
Seriously, think about it for a second. Is there any other class that gets an ability at level 1 that lets them deal 30 extra damage per hit and also disrupts spellcasting for several rounds?
If we are looking at Berserkers.
Is there any other class that gets an ability at level 1 that let them become immune to every crowd control effects, including Imprisonment (which makes absolutely no sense from a roleplay point of view) and also allows them to solo Demiliches without any retaliation?
I think that the poison effect not stacking is strange considering that every other poisons, be it from Arrows/Bolts of Biting or from creatures like Spiders stack.
The more times you bring up spiders, the more it sounds like a bug (no pun intended). In vanilla BG and BG2, no poison effects stacked. If they're stacking now, that's new behavior.
Comments
But I see the Wizard Slayer is getting some improvement (Wizard Slayer will now apply 25% casting failure on hit) so we may see other changes of the kind in the future.
-They proc on-hit effects (including poison) in the entire AoE
-They are unlimited in BG:EE
-They are very limited in BG2 (Randomly dropped one by one as a rare random drop, and EE added up to 20 of them in the ToB EE NPC quests) which balanced the interaction.
The fact that poison weapon became available in BG:EE (and that it is so strong even at early levels) made it quite unbalanced, because one or two such arrows can kill about any group of enemy. At least in ToB you need 4-5 of them for the same result. You are an experienced player, then you can mod it (SCS etc...) that might balance it as you want and it will be fine for you. If you were a casual player, you might not want to use mods at first, and such gamebreaking skills might as well ruin your game pleasure.
@Gotural , you mentioned another few examples of alledgedly overpowered abilities, such as spell immunity or chain contingency. These are strong as well but their potential is not AS obvious as that of poison weapon and requires quite a bit of metagaming knowledge to be used to their full potential. And when you have that kind of knowledge then you should be willing to use mods. Inquisitor dispel is indeed blatantly OP just like poison weapon and should be next to be an "official nerf"
Leave some imbalances in! If you had to really balance everything, you would need to remove or replace Shapechange, Timestop, the Robe of Vecna (easily obtainable) and many other abilities already mentioned.
You would end up with a game so markedly different to the original that it becomes more of a mod. You will start getting compared to Improved Anvil, which also selectively nerfs things that the author does not like. I disagree. Context matters. The Poison Weapon ability is FAR more unbalanced for a Blackguard than it is for an Assassin. Yes, you could reuse it, but is that a good idea?
I also think you should rather look at balancing kits instead of abilities. Poison Weapon is less overpowered for an Assassin than it is for a Blackguard. In fact, for an Assassin, I'd say it is just right.
Suggestion: Do something else for the Blackguard, even if you have to make a new ability. Remove the AOE poison effect from arrows. Allow poison to scale in damage and allow it to effect a target more than once.
As far as I'm concerned, "balance" is one of those modern myths that's responsible for a lot of newer games turning out to be a bland, horrible mess. It removes creativity and excitement and replaces them with dumb overpolished sameness. Fortunately, AD&D is very far from being "balanced", and so is Baldur's Gate.
Hell, in Baldur's Gate II, half the monster population utilizes some manner of cheese tactics, and chances are you'll need to resort to cheese yourself in order to bring them down. That's beautiful, it encourages players to think outside the box, and it would never pass the QA stage at a modern AAA game studio.
If you want to balance poison weapon for the blackguard, here's what you do: make a copy of poison weapon, assign it to the blackguard, and start changing stuff.
In other words:
That said, I am nervous about successive waves of 'balance' blending out the game. We should temper those concerns with the addition of a whole new class and mechanic in the same patch!
So, where does it stop? I think the game should be balanced from the point of view of fun, not MMORPG-like "all class combinations must be equally powerful". BG2 is not a competitive multiplayer game. It doesn't really matter if the Sorcerer has higher average damage output than a jester. It matters that both have their place in well designed parties.
If there is a kit or class which would provide too much power to a well designed party, then that kit, as a whole, should be rebalanced.
As it stands, will a single assassin make a BG1 or BG2 party overpowered? It may make a BG1 party overpowered because poison currently does not scale, but an assassin is nowhere near as powerful as a Blackguard is.
And this is precisely why I don't think there is an optimal solution that involves using the same poison ability for both classes. In combat, a Blackguard is more effective than an Assassin.
I say again, this particular change was necessary. There are enemies you'll face in the expansion that use this ability, and that forced us to look at the balance of the ability--not only from the perspective of the user, but also from the perspective of the target.
Removing the stacking is one step toward making it fair. Adding a scaling progression is another. The save penalties are a step toward making it fun. Changing the initial damage from an over-time effect to an instant effect adds dynamic to the ability, which is also designed to make it more fun to use.
I've seen it happen way too many times to associate the word "balance" with anything positive from a design perspective at this point. There are plenty of spells in Baldur's Gate that are useless from a gameplay standpoint, and a whole bunch more that are far beyond their spell level in power. If you start worrying about making them all equally viable for their spell level, you'll not only lose a lot of hair in the process, but will also work towards making the game boring.
And for the record, I don't think I've ever played an assassin, what I'm worried about here is the principle of the thing.
Think of it like a triangle. On one side you have fun, on the second side you have balance, and on the third side you have looking cool. If you go all the way to one of those three sides, the other two sides are going to suffer. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. What you want is a mechanic that is balanced (as in, doesn't remove the challenge or risk from using that mechanic), fun (as in, it's satisfying to use while you're using it), and looks awesome when it works (as in, someone watching you use the mechanic will be impressed by your amazingness).
The current implementation of Poison Weapon looks awesome, and is reasonably fun, but it's not balanced. What we're trying to do is bring the ability back to the center of that triangle, without sacrificing the fun and without compromising too heavily on looking cool.
Seriously, think about it for a second. Is there any other class that gets an ability at level 1 that lets them deal 30 extra damage per hit and also disrupts spellcasting for several rounds?
If the Assassin's Poison Weapon ability being properly balanced makes that class too weak, then Poison Weapon wasn't the problem with the Assassin in the first place.
Many of us go to lengths to make the game harder. It should be hard. Maybe vanilla poison should be made available in story mode and scale by difficulty instead.
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/48514/should-beamdog-rebalance-original-content
If we are looking at Berserkers.
Is there any other class that gets an ability at level 1 that let them become immune to every crowd control effects, including Imprisonment (which makes absolutely no sense from a roleplay point of view) and also allows them to solo Demiliches without any retaliation?
I think that the poison effect not stacking is strange considering that every other poisons, be it from Arrows/Bolts of Biting or from creatures like Spiders stack.
@Ancalagon44 made a fair comparison in my opinion with cyanide anyway. Poison effects should stack, it doesn't make sense otherwise.
Current behavior: 1 damage/sec + 1 damage/sec = 2 × 1 damage/sec
Damage stacking behavior: 1 damage/sec + 1 damage/sec = 2 damage/sec
This way it could also be capped off at, for example, 15 damage/sec.
However, the game having various poisons with different damage frequency makes this harder to design and implement.