The next thing that needs to be redesigned for the sake of balance

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

The only thing I'm trying to kill here is elemental near-immunity. I'm emphatically not trying to kill the concept of +max resistance itself, and when it's present in small doses I'm trying to avoid nerfing it. Did you even look at my numbers chart?

By the way, Astarte's suggestion for giving monsters elemental penetration can work out about the same as mine, but it's a little trickier to apply. Might be more interesting in the end, however, so it might be worth the extra work. Either mine or his, both work.

elemental penetration is a good concept but i dont think it will solve the need to cap the ressistances due to spike dmg.

i would rather see elemental spike dmg tonned down a bit and then rework the elemental ress to a more linear way like armor.
say items will give a flat elemental reduction and elemental nodes get replaced with increased elemental resistance, so if i have 100 to fire ress and 200% increased from nodes then my char will receive 300 less dmg from fire attacks, would probably need a cap like cant reduce beyond 80-90% so skills like incinerate dont get uterly destroyed.

this change implies 3 things:
first is that less spike dmg will make ele ress a buffer like armor instead of a must cap
second is that it will give a use to all those ele ress we have scatered around the tree
third is that linear dmg reduction make it easier to balance.

Scrotie, reading through your suggestions and the number crunching, I very much appriciate your effort in providing an alternative that is both practical (as in easy-to-implement) and better than the current situation.

Something, that seems to keep being an annoyance is the purity of X and flask issue. It seems that most suggestion would be easier to fine-tune if the "max res" bonus of "purity of X" and flasks are simply just changed to something like "40% more effective hp vs X element". (of course those "more" wouldn't stack additively with each other)

Since the unique "abyssus" already has the "(40 to 50)% increased Physical Damage taken" mechanic, so the coding of the "40% more effective hp vs X element" should be easy.

Doing so would make it so that once and for all make it so that "purity of x" and "flask" will always feel impactful no matter how much max res you had priorly, while simultaneously avoiding the effect to be so ridiculously strong that it becomes far harder for the devs to balance elemental damage.

Edit: Oh and I very much enjoyed that article at diablo fansite you linked, so thanks.

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mazul wrote:

Scrotie, reading through your suggestions and the number crunching, I very much appriciate your effort in providing an alternative that is both practical (as in easy-to-implement) and better than the current situation.

Something, that seems to keep being an annoyance is the purity of X and flask issue. It seems that most suggestion would be easier to fine-tune if the "max res" bonus of "purity of X" and flasks are simply just changed to something like "40% more effective hp vs X element". (of course those "more" wouldn't stack additively with each other)

Since the unique "abyssus" already has the "(40 to 50)% increased Physical Damage taken" mechanic, so the coding of the "40% more effective hp vs X element" should be easy.

Doing so would make it so that once and for all make it so that "purity of x" and "flask" will always feel impactful no matter how much max res you had priorly, while simultaneously avoiding the effect to be so ridiculously strong that it becomes far harder for the devs to balance elemental damage.

Thanks.

While you have a point, like I said earlier, I don't want to kill +max res as a mechanic, merely unbreak it when stacked very high. Replacing it with a different mechanic is effectively killing it as a mechanic. Additionally, I really want to see a more low-level-friendly Righteous Fire; the current system forces a ridiculous 90% self-inflicted burn only because of how the current resistance system works, and if resists were lowered as I suggest you could have a much more reasonable RF for earlier use.

Definitely pro change here. It is insane how every extra % of resistances gives u more dmg reduction and the further u keep going, the better it gets.

Amazing thread, folks, :P

Bump for justice.

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Bump for justice.

True words.

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Terrornoid wrote:

Any "Penetration" mechanics or touching of any Max Res will result in Max Res becoming that much more mandatory. Someone even suggested -40% penetration; that leaves anyone with 75% normal res smacked down to 35%. Then there are a few others who are actually thinking the problem through.

Some other suggestions:
Move the normal max res down and scale down monster damage. This makes each point of increased max res a much smaller damage reduction than if it were calculated at 75%+.
Example: 50 Normal Max + 10% Max results in a player taking 20% less elemental damage. At 75 Normal Max + 10% Max, a player is taking 40% less damage.

Add a "absolute damage" mechanic of sorts that starts from 100%. It hurts players with higher res more than players without it.
Example: Monster has 30% absolute damage. 100% max - 30% = 70% possible max res to it.

Change "Max Res" to "% Reduced Elemental Damage." A mechanic like that becomes less effective the more resistances you have.
Example: @ 0 Res: 50% Reduced Elemental Damage = 50% Elemental Damage Reduced. @ 50 Res: 50% Reduced Elemental Damage = 25% Elemental Damage Reduced.

Do the D3 thing and add diminishing returns and remove the cap.


All of these have their pros and cons. All of them also involve a shitton of work. PoE just might be too far into its life to actually have something like this changed (sort of like the defense trio of energy shield, armor, and evasion.)

Well if you actually think about it, having diminishing returns doesn't really solve the problem either, and as you said it will create so much work and complexity that I am sure diminishing returns on resistances will not be implemented. Changing the resistance system to diminishing returns is a GLOBAL change and will affect all characters, spells, damage, what they rely on for gear, gems etc. You will most likely have to give a free respec to everyone, rebalance mods on certain gear, and also introduce other skills to help complement resistances just as armor has complements from Endurance Charges, Immortal Call, Blind, Arctic Armor etc. - you will have to think about and introduce mechanics and skills like this to help people complement their resistances since it will act just like armor.

You may also have to go back and check, and maybe rebalance, any mobs or bosses in the game that use elemental damage and are now doing higher damage than they had been originally intended to do.

You will also have to rebalance certain keystones probably like Phase Acrobatics, and block and spell block nodes and rebalance spell block and spell dodge items as well. Because - having diminishing returns on resistances will make Spell Dodge and Spell Block WAAAY MORE powerful and valuable than they are now.

Then maybe you will have to change the passive tree as well, and introduce nodes like % increased resistances etc., just like the armor and evasion nodes.

However, allowing resistance penetration like I suggested is a much more easier, faster, and more flexible solution for GGG that still gets the job done - GGG can cherry pick and chose which bosses get resistance penetration and to what extent (i.e. -10% or -40%) allowing them to easily fine tune bosses and mobs as they desire, without having to change the ENTIRE game. It is much easier to implement and I think Atziri already has resistance penetration on one of her spells. They won't even have to disclose the #%, so it gives them more flexibility to later on rebalance the penetration #s on a boss as part of a broader patch, WITHOUT any complexity or fear of the community raising a sh*tstorm.

So thinking about all this, I'm pretty sure the most practical and flexible solution for GGG is to introduce resistance penetration modifiers on mobs, and NOT redo the whole resistance system to diminishing returns.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Bump for justice.

As long as GGG devs have actually read the thread, I think the thread did well. Given their recent positive activity with the development manifesto and snapshotting policy/fixing, I am very much willing to take their word for that they do often read the forums.

Nonetheless, I am excited for the future of the game and specially the next 4 month leagues.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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mazul wrote:

What it should be changed to is a formula such as Diablo 3 and LoL: Damage reduction against elemental damage = x/(a + b*x) where x is some form of resistance stat and "a" and "b" are constants.

I fucking hate this suggestion.

I think capped resists are a really cool itemization challenge. When you are gearing you character, you're trying to reach that cap, and getting too much resistance on gear doesn't help, so it becomes a matching game rather than a stacking game. Capped stats on gear create experientially different gear selection challenges and thus should not be removed from the game for any reason.

Capped resists can be balanced, when they're considered mandatory for surviving. No capped res? Perpare to die, your build/gear isnt viable. I can accept that as game design, although it makes gear selection a pain in the ass.

But cap thould be FIXED IN STONE then. It shouldnt be ever possible to increase your maximum resists, as it breaks the whole idea apart.
You cant balance increasing returns, unless cap exists and is considered mandatory. Do you want to state, that 100% elemental resist should be a starting point for elemental damage balance? So elemental damage should outright oneshot anyone, if he doesnt have immunity? What a poor design it is...