I like where this is going but...

[Antynomity]

Please remove planar mechanics.

[somethin]

B-but I like planar mechanics..!
- no one ever

Honestly I don't mind them, and I don't see why it is a problem. It basically keeps the old weapon/armor relevant, but with reduced efficiency and the new weapon to not powercreep old weapon/armor as hard. But it's just my opinion.

[ADAGIO-M74]

Please help me understand why people hate Planar mechanics so much.

From a game design perspective, they're really well put together and they're aspirational content too.

I'm trying to understand the frustration behind the outrage I see on the forums.

[Capybara007]

33 minutes ago, ADAGIO-M74 said:

Please help me understand why people hate Planar mechanics so much.

From a game design perspective, they're really well put together and they're aspirational content too.

I'm trying to understand the frustration behind the outrage I see on the forums.

The old weapons remain useless since the damage output is very low

The new weapons are not fun to use as they dont make you feel powerful against you previous threats, in terraria for example once you get you post hardmode weapons you get to 1 shot the enemies that once bothered you, this is not the case in dst as they are the same as using a dark sword against a hound for example

[Antynomity]

3 hours ago, somethin said:

B-but I like planar mechanics..!
- no one ever

Honestly I don't mind them, and I don't see why it is a problem. It basically keeps the old weapon/armor relevant, but with reduced efficiency and the new weapon to not powercreep old weapon/armor as hard. But it's just my opinion.

The old armour would still be relevant as long as they would keep the current trend of just making the pieces unique with lower defense stats compared to some earlier options e.g dreadstone and thulecite. Also... what powercreep? To get more damage with the two-pre current beta weapons you'd have to use the set bonuses otherwise they are a reskinned darksword / worse hambat due to the stats, no other sets have these kinds of mechanics that make you use 2+ items to get the full effect, aka, not powercreep.

35 minutes ago, ADAGIO-M74 said:

Please help me understand why people hate Planar mechanics so much.

From a game design perspective, they're really well put together and they're aspirational content too.

I'm trying to understand the frustration behind the outrage I see on the forums.

They are completely arbitrary, they try to counter something that did not exist pre rift content and wouldn't exist even without these mechanics in place.

From a game design perspective they are atrocious, first off: they make all previous gear completely redundant in the new content once the planar items are obtained (creating powercreep out of an otherwise well balanced system) Second: Characters like Wolfgang are already getting back the damage they lost with the introduction of these mechanics (they are giving you a problem and instantly after selling you a solution through a skill system that rewards the usage of the command c_skip('160') the most) making yet another reason for their existence, nonexistent.

[bloopah]

Just get used to it already. I'm sick of half of the post-Rift threads being about how it's apparently the worst mechanic by far. It's not the end of the world because you won't be able to trivialize future encounters in the game with only Night Armor and a Dark Sword (two items easily obtainable before the first winter, mind you).

1 hour ago, Antynomity said:

They are completely arbitrary, they try to counter something that did not exist pre rift content and wouldn't exist even without these mechanics in place.

For the longest time we didn't have that many enemies that used Planar mechanics, which was the primary source of criticism, and now that we finally got them you're still complaining that it's arbitrary? It wasn't even meant for pre-Rift content, it was meant to still provide a challenge once you're at the stage where combat against regular targets becomes a curb-stomp battle. Of course you're not gonna get Planar enemies pre-Rift because they're not needed at that point, and you won't even see any of it pre-Rift.

[cropo]

I still feel the planar items trump old items completely.  Brightshade Sword is literally a Dark Sword without the sanity penalty and easy access to repairs, and can be further buffed by the armor, which can be repaired.

 

Void armor reduces sanity loss and powers up the scythe...and can be repaired. Makes Deerclops for example easier to deal with. I know the BBQ exists but that's a headslot item, better suited to having a lightsource equipped to it for even less setup for smacking deerclops.

 

Brightshade staff can take over the need to grind weather pains for fuelweaver, with a far more predictable bounce requiring less spam, and can be repaired.

 

I mean they don't totally dominate pre-rift equipment for boss-fights, but I personally see them as a notable improvement or convenience to a lot of them. And I'm kinda warming up to the planar system TBH, I like being able to have one weapon that I have a lot of repair kits for. I was honestly just using Ham Bats for 90% of the game, I find the sanity drain of Dark Swords far more annoying than people give it credit for so it was a straight upgrade for me.

 

You can also get a pretty decent planar defense pre-rift with the obsidian  dreadstone armor so you aren't thrown into planar mechanics without at least some form of protection. 

 

 

...and can be repaired.

[mykenception]

Planar mechanics are staying. The new contents are in too deep with it, so it's  removal will never happen

[_zwb]

The biggest issue with rift content is that they are not consistent.

*Adds planar mechanics to nerf high damage per hit attacks and balance combat system.
*Adds skill trees to make Wolfgang best at combat again, unbalancing combat system.

*Adds new decoration structures and more customisation options.
*Adds mechanics that absolutely destroys structures, plants and mobs for the views . In the same update.

The planar stuff is just too inconsistent....

[gamehun20]

1 minute ago, _zwb said:

Adds skill trees to make Wolfgang best at combat again, unbalancing combat system.

This would be evidence that they didn't make the planar system to nerf stuff?

[_zwb]

4 minutes ago, gamehun20 said:

This would be evidence that they didn't make the planar system to nerf stuff?

Ah yes, klei specifically picked and fine tuned a formula that would significantly hurt high damage modifiers, but they do not intend to nerf high damage modifiers, at all.

This is exactly inconsistency. If Klei never intended to nerf stuff then why do it in the first place? Also klei somehow only realise this little "oversight" they've made after couple months and start reverting it? Sounds like nonsense to me.

[Valase]

I do like the planar mechanics, as it would be borderline impossible to have new armors without nerfing the old ones, tell me, how do you make a new endgame armor better than a 95% protection shadow armor. The only thing that keeps certain boss drops afloat is the fact that they have additional effects, BQ crown reverts sanity auras, Bone helm pacifies shadow monsters, Bone armor gives you a free dodge, CC crown has light/damage on full sanity. And as you see, they don't even try to compete with acutal armor (BQ has 70% damage reduction, Bone helm 70% too, bone armor has a cd, CC crown offers no damage reduction).

But I would love to see how the game would have to be balanced if the planar mechanics never existed. An entire panoply of armors balanced around the (planar damage-less) rift enemies, if people don't like the grass suit for its 60% damage reduction, imagine if all the armors had to have that because the new rift equipment needs to be the 90% damage reduction ones!

Or imagine having to kill a toadstool every winter due the fact that the Moonclops health needs to be adjusted because a shadow sword deals 68 damage to it. Hmmm love-me-some Health sponges!

Concluding, I do agree that the planar mechanic can be tweaked to any extent as the game needs it, but outright removing it is absurd!

[GenomeSquirrel]

26 minutes ago, Valase said:

I do like the planar mechanics, as it would be borderline impossible to have new armors without nerfing the old ones, tell me, how do you make a new endgame armor better than a 95% protection shadow armor. 

You could not make new armor and make something unique instead.

[Antynomity]

3 hours ago, bloopah said:

Snip

I don't eve want anything to be trivialised at this point, I want to be able to use all the cool and older items that might be fun to use without being heavily penalised because of an arbitrary system. Thanks for not reading what I've said at all yet still replying.

You... whoever you are SHOPCAT reacting me all the time... I will find you... and I will Starve you.

[bloopah]

41 minutes ago, Antynomity said:

I don't eve want anything to be trivialised at this point, I want to be able to use all the cool and older items that might be fun to use without being heavily penalised because of an arbitrary system. Thanks for not reading what I've said at all yet still replying.

All I can decipher is you complaining about progression. And which older items are you talking about? From what I can see the weapons I would deem "fun to use" are getting alternatives with Planar damage. Weather Pain has the Brightshade Staff, Gunpowder has the Brightshade Bombs, and Blow Darts have the newly-added Howlitzer, which also doubles as a Hound Tooth sink. A lot of non-Planar items aren't even that much penalized. In fact, the Fire Staff, one of the "older items that might be fun to use" is indeed a must-have for Crystal Deerclops, a very fun fight, in my opinion.

[MondayNight]

Yes, we recurrent posters here and the potential dev(s) reading forums got it: you really really dislike Planar mechanic, OP. You made it clear (and I believe one other regular forumer, vocally vehement against it as well - Theukon was his nick? Anyway). But after almost 1 irl year of this mechanic being the center of Rift updates you probably understood Planar is here to stay. In fact is a clever way to still maintain relevance of use for early-game items like Spear, Battle Spear, Fencing Sword, Tail o' Three Cats, Morning Star etc (aka no Weapons "power creep"). I too didn't fancy Planar mechanic when first introduced, but adapted over time. Maybe you should accept and try adapting as well, in the end you might enjoy this direction?!

[Szczuku]

50 minutes ago, MostMerryTomcat said:

But after almost 1 irl year of this mechanic being the center of Rift updates

Not to be that person but... rifts and planar are 5 month old

[Theukon-dos]

9 hours ago, ADAGIO-M74 said:

Please help me understand why people hate Planar mechanics so much.

From a game design perspective, they're really well put together and they're aspirational content too.

I'm trying to understand the frustration behind the outrage I see on the forums.

I'm planning a much, much longer post in the future to sum up all my thoughts and critisisms of the update chain as a whole, but to summerize.

1. It's an extremely roundabout system. The actual mechanics behind planar damage and defense are honestly quite confusing for something that could have just been a small handful of tags.

2. The mechanic unfairly targets combat-based characters. Despite people whining about it every other month, Wolfgang really didn't need his damage toned down at all, especially in a post-refresh world where he's one of only 2 characters who didn't get a huge boost of power with their refresh (the other being WX)

3. Planar mechanics also unfairly nerf characters and items that where already considered below average. Walter's Slingshot, Cookie cutter caps, the Shield of Terror, Thulecite Club, ect. All ranged from niche too downright useless. And planar mechanics did nothing to make any of these items actually good.

 

Again, I'm planning a big in-depth post once things settle down. But ultimately, I would describe rifts and planar damage as Klei dancing around the problem instead of adressing it. They may genuinely feel that damage-based characters are too strong or that Dark Swords and Football helmets have to tight a hold on the meta. But instead of just biting the bullet and addressing those problems, they instead added decided to spend months implementing an entirely new end-game with a whole host of mechanics that seem entirely dedicated to getting in the way of things. If they just nerfed things that needed nerfed, they probably could have fixed all the problems they saw within a month and then moved onto things more than 1% of players would actually encounter.

 

Not to mention that we're only talking about planar mechanics, and not the other myriad of issues the updates have introduced. Remember when they added acid rain into the caves and the mechanic was so awful they completely neutered it until a month later? Yeah, things have been pretty rough in general.

6 hours ago, bloopah said:

Just get used to it already. I'm sick of half of the post-Rift threads being about how it's apparently the worst mechanic by far. It's not the end of the world because you won't be able to trivialize future encounters in the game with only Night Armor and a Dark Sword (two items easily obtainable before the first winter, mind you).

For the longest time we didn't have that many enemies that used Planar mechanics, which was the primary source of criticism, and now that we finally got them you're still complaining that it's arbitrary? It wasn't even meant for pre-Rift content, it was meant to still provide a challenge once you're at the stage where combat against regular targets becomes a curb-stomp battle. Of course you're not gonna get Planar enemies pre-Rift because they're not needed at that point, and you won't even see any of it pre-Rift.

Oh ffs why is it so hard to break quote blocks up now? I like my replies being organized, thank you very much.

Ehem, anyways.

1. That is not and has never been the issue.

2. Not having enemies to use planar weapons against was never the issue. The issue was that planar mechanics as a whole are fundementally flawed.

40 minutes ago, MostMerryTomcat said:

Yes, we recurrent posters here and the potential dev(s) reading forums got it: you really really dislike Planar mechanic, OP. You made it clear (and I believe one other regular forumer, vocally vehement against it as well - Theukon was his nick? Anyway). But after almost 1 irl year of this mechanic being the center of Rift updates you probably understood Planar is here to stay. In fact is a clever way to still maintain relevance of use for early-game items like Spear, Battle Spear, Fencing Sword, Tail o' Three Cats, Morning Star etc (aka no Weapons "power creep"). I too didn't fancy Planar mechanic when first introduced, but adapted over time. Maybe you should accept and try adapting as well, in the end you might enjoy this direction?!

Yep! that's me! Call be G5 Iguazu because I'm the biggest damn hater you'll ever meet!

Anyways, as Szcuzuku said, Rift mechanics are only 5 months old. And

1. None of the weapons you listed other than the spear and morning star are or ever where relevant. And even then there's a good chunk of players that'll tell you to just make an axe instead of wasting resources on a spear.

2. Nothing about planar mechanics is special enough that it couldn't get nuked from existence, and the things that use it either recycled or slightly adjusted to compensate.

[MondayNight]

51 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

Not to be that person but... rifts and planar are 5 month old

Then you can wait 5 more, all the while Rift-updates will center on Planar mechanic further on, and circle back to my comment as de facto, heh.

Point is: KLei won't go back on Planar. They "tweaked" in past certain elements (Wolfgang update, for example - and even then they didn't remove Gym and Dumbbells, though a lot more people were vocal against their introduction; fun fact: remember the in-game starting screen for that update? Wolfgang "saving" a Potato atop a rock with fire all around? Alluding to "forums will be in flames for this" - this = Wolf's rework?! KLei even poked fun at people's often exaggerated reactions, one can say), but never went back on something that was build upon for long periods of time and on such vast magnitude - virtually all Rifts content has Planar front-and-center. Do you honestly believe by now you and 2-3 other recurrent posters here, making repeated threads and comments regarding how you want Planar reverted, will suddenly click with KLei a la "Oh golly, what was upon us for last N months to roll such mechanic/content, thankfully these 5 people brought sense into us after posting 100 times they really-really don't fancy it?! Ok guys, time to delete and re-tweak the N months of work, pfiu!"?

 

27 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

1. None of the weapons you listed other than the spear and morning star are or ever where relevant. And even then there's a good chunk of players that'll tell you to just make an axe instead of wasting resources on a spear.

2. Nothing about planar mechanics is special enough that it couldn't get nuked from existence, and the things that use it either recycled or slightly adjusted to compensate.

Maybe those weapons aren't relevant to you from utility pov, but for the small amount of Planar "affliction" done upon then (aka how the Planar functions), they do matter in the "power creep" discussion. In the sense that having straight-up better weapons, damage-wise - i.e. weapons from new bosses going over 100-200 dmg per hit, simple & hard bigger numbers - invalidates a lot more early-game weapons than current Planar mechanic, making them superfluous. If you're ok with that, sure, no biggie, as balance philosophy goes. But KLei will still not "delete" Planar mechanic.

As for second point, Planar is for sure more special that just weapons with bigger hard numbers, as stated. Yes, can be viewed as convoluted too (complex mathematical formula vs simple mathematical addition). But in discussions about game balance, such concept is clearly something that separates KLei's approach to end-game than what most devs out there do: just increase numbers, not even logarithmically or the like.

[Jakepeng99]

I like Planar mechanics though i dislike how they currently are implemented on Wolfgang's skill tree. Those skills should be base kit or be more interesting imo since it just returns him back to normal power

[GenomeSquirrel]

16 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

2. The mechanic unfairly targets combat-based characters. Despite people whining about it every other month, Wolfgang really didn't need his damage toned down at all, especially in a post-refresh world where he's one of only 2 characters who didn't get a huge boost of power with their refresh (the other being WX)

i've interpreted this as targeting the more gimmicky damage, from traps to catapults, bees and maybe minions; I get the feeling that after the dust settles, most traditional combat should feel back to square one, but everything that wasn't traditional will feel obsoleted unless a skill tree uplifts it.

 

But perhaps this is bias, I'll admit all of my experience with these is through console commands so I don't get melted if I somehow encounter one in pubs.