BrickleberryPi
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Posts posted by BrickleberryPi
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I suspect the location or something has changed since the 1.05 patch because on day 17, the gloves are no longer there--at least for me. Could someone else test this out?
Are you on the 17th day of the month (e.g. 17 Fonprima when you mouse over the time at the bottom of the screen) or on Day 17 of the game (i.e. what is shown on your saved game)? I ask because the Gloves were only there on the former, and I made the mistake at first of thinking it was the latter.
It's day 17 on the center clock thing in the UI. This is on the first month too.
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I suspect the location or something has changed since the 1.05 patch because on day 17, the gloves are no longer there--at least for me. Could someone else test this out?
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I don't see Sagani dealing 20 additional damage per attack. Is it safe to assume that it's more like +2 damage per attack but a bug occured and added an extra 0 to the end in the description?
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I thought something was weird, but now I'm certain of it: after using an ability in combat, characters that were auto-attacking do not resume attacking. I tested this out on my wizard by using arcane assault and he just stops and waits for the next command instead of resuming auto-attacks.
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*Sigh* Level two wizard spells are still lacking in terms of offensive power, but the change to concelhaut's is a good start. I wouldn't mind seeing it's ranged increased to at least 8m though. I love me some medium/long ranged spells
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When the party is about to exit to a new map and the player clicks on the dialogue icon next in a companion's portrait, the companion's dialogue menu will appear. After that, the party continues moving and the entire party can end up transitioning to a new map with the same dialogue menu stuck in place and cannot be closed. Also, this causes the dialogue icon to remain on the companion portrait.
Steps to reproduce:
- Start at an inn or interior building.
- Make sure the player character is positioned next to a companion with a dialogue event in the party formation window.
- Make sure a companion has some sort of conversation dialogue/quest available.
- Click to exit to the next map/town/zone that the inn/interior is located.
- Just as the party is about to reach the exit point, click on the quest dialogue icon.
- You should end up talking to the companion and exiting the map at the same time.
- The new map loads up and the companion's quest dialogue menu will appear but can't be interacted with. It also cannot close at all.
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I got them first time somewhere in Raedric's Hold without any funny business, which is great seeing as it's a solo PotD run.
Don't worry, it's okay to hate me.
Curse you! (Seriously, you got really lucky on that RNG).
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Aloth or another wizard with a carefully aimed fan of flames can solve many of your shade/shadow based problems.
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So I tried a different method and I think this might work:
- I killed Osyra
- Rested once
- Got the dream about Durance
- Spoke with him about the Godhammer
- Rested a second time
- Walked through the secret passage
- Different loot from previous time
I'm going to do some more testing later this evening.
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When I try to use the secret shortcut, she ends up turning hostile and attacking me. Is that normal?
Did you tell her that you won't harm Raedric?
I told her I would kill Nedmar.
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Non-unique items are randomized. Loot is generated when you peek in a container. The looting seed used in all areas is changed after every game day. You can manipulate the game into coughing up a pair by knowing the location where it drops and resting 3-4x to change the seed.
For example, there is a pair that can be found on a desk in Raedric's private chambers. It is connected to Osyra's room and you can freely rest there if you side with her.
If you want an easy way to obtain the gloves, do the following:
1.) Save your game in Osyra's room.
2.) Use her shortcut to reach Raedric's private chambers.
3.) Loot the desk.
4.) If you find the Gloves of Manipulation, congrats. You can stop here.
5.) If you don't find the Gloves of Manipulation, reload your save.
6.) Talk to Osyra and rest until a day passes.
7.) Go back to step 1.
To get a better understanding of how the seeding works, if you find the Gloves of Manipulation on Raedric's desk, you'll also find a Blunting Belt in the trapped chest by Raedric's bed 100% of the time. The seed used to spawn the gloves on his desk is the same seed used to spawn the belt in the trapped chest. If you loot the gloves, but don't want the belt, you can go back down to Osyra's room and rest a day to change the seed.
When I try to use the secret shortcut, she ends up turning hostile and attacking me. Is that normal?
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Wizard. Only because I've played spellcaster types and I love being able to make things explode while purely dealing tremendous amounts of AoE damage. The irony of this statement is that I expected the wizard to do this without researching DnD properly and found out that DnD wizards are more crowd control than pure AoE damage. Still, a change in pace and playstyle is always nice and though I find the wizard to be a bit on the OP side at the later levels, I think it's fun. Imo, it would be more fun if the wizard had a balanced early level and balanced late level experience.
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I suggested basically something like this in a previous post of mine. However, a response that caught me off guard was basically that having per encounter spells of each level would mean the player would have to select one particular spell. In turn, this would harm the wizard's best strength: versatility.
I think I would probably make a different suggestion from OP by saying that at level 6, casting arcane assault will grant the wizard a combat only level one spell use. Every three levels after that, arcane assault will add another spell level. That way, by level 12, a wizard will potentially get six combat only spell uses across three spell levels.
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Since the patch, my wizard stopped casting spells mid-cast and resets to a different state.
Here's the dropbox link to the zip folder containing the save: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26512651/Bugged%20Wizard%20quicksave.zip
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I'm going to have to say that I heavily disagree with OP on the subject that Wizards are too weak. Sure, the damage might not be crazy stupid high, but wizards are powerful enough as it is and I'm hoping patch 1.05 will address that.
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With no talents not wand/specter/rod, they suck by themselves, anything better, pistol/arquebus is ok because it trades crit you wouldn't do anyway for dr bypass, but their slowness might mess with casting, you can always just use a bow, or run in do some melee in some cases, pretty much use any good gear your teammates don't care for. Above all you need accuracy because you not only start with only 20 but also very likely don't take any talents to boost it.
With 1 talent investment wand/specter/rod is great, blast talent is strong.
Spells to consider
I never used the spirit lance before, it's basically a close range weapon like the leaching staff, right?
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The transition from per-rest to per-encounter usage of spells is probably too sharp. In other words, one level all of your spells of a certain level are restricted per-rest, and then the next level they are suddenly all per-encounter. There wouldn't be such a dramatic jump in caster power level if the transition was more gradual. After all, when you first gain the abilities to cast spells of a certain level you don't also gain the ability to cast four of them per-rest at the same time.
Here's an example of what I mean:
Current Wizard Spell Progression Modified Wizard Spell Progression Spell uses per Spell Level Spell uses per Spell Level Level 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th Level 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 1 2/r - - - - - 1 2/r - - - - - 2 3/r - - - - - 2 3/r - - - - - 3 4/r 2/r - - - - 3 4/r 2/r - - - - 4 4/r 3/r - - - - 4 4/r 3/r - - - - 5 4/r 4/r 2/r - - - 5 4/r 4/r 2/r - - - 6 4/r 4/r 3/r - - - 6 4/r 4/r 3/r - - - 7 4/r 4/r 4/r 2/r - - 7 1/e + 3/r 4/r 4/r 2/r - - 8 4/r 4/r 4/r 3/r - - 8 2/e + 2/r 4/r 4/r 3/r - - 9 4/e 4/r 4/r 4/r 2/r - 9 3/e + 1/r 1/e + 3/r 4/r 4/r 2/r - 10 4/e 4/r 4/r 4/r 3/r - 10 4/e 2/e + 2/r 4/r 4/r 3/r - 11 4/e 4/e 4/r 4/r 4/r 2/r 11 4/e 3/e + 1/r 1/e + 3/r 4/r 4/r 2/r 12 4/e 4/e 4/r 4/r 4/r 3/r 12 4/e 4/e 2/e + 2/r 4/r 4/r 3/rThe idea would be that just as you are gradually introduced to casting spells of a certain level, the ability to cast spells of that level per-encounter would develop over the course of several levels. In my example I chose to start the transition 6 levels after the ability to cast spells of that level was first acquired, but exactly when it starts is not as important as the gradual nature of the transition.
This would introduce an added layer of complexity for spell casters, who would need to be able to understand from the UI how many spells of each level can be cast per-encounter, and whether casting a spell of a certain level is going to count against their per-rest limit. There is a potential for confusion, but I don't think that it is beyond the limits of the UI, and I expect that the average player will be able to come to an understanding of how the system works with a reasonable amount of experience.
That's a really cool idea gradually introducing per encounter casts. However, at max level, that's still a base 10 casts per encounter which is, imo, too much.
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Wizards are my favourite class usually in every game. I'm up to level 8 now and here's my take on the class so far:
- No staff implement? What are these little sticks I have to wield for a ranged weapon?
- No spell schools / domains / specializations and related items? Meh.
- The novelty of the massive book you are constantly holding gets old fast. The chants and casting times range from instant to short so surely you can remember 4 spells per level without having to read them from a book every time. It looks silly and cumbersome in hand. Not being able to cast anything without a grimoire item is theoretically a massive weakness for the class.
- 4 available spells per level? Really? All other caster classes get everything for free and complete freedom to cast whatever whenever. How is Wizard the "most flexible"?
- Spell durations are really short which means the impact of the Intelligence stat on duration is also fairly unimportant most of the time.
- Combat gets very cluttered in PoE most of the time and most spell effects don't have a visual indicator. Hard to tell what's going on without pausing all the time and examining enemies.
- The actual impact of the spells is much harder to tell than in the IE games since the effects are generally much weaker and there are multiple stages of success with everything (multiple stages is good but the actual results are hard to discern)
- Most AoE's are quite small too, making the Wizard play more like a surgeon with pause than a battlefield controller.
- Severe lack of defensive spells and spells to break engagement. Teleporting enemies love to gang up on Wizards and they have no means to protect themselves. Hardened Veil requires 2 talent picks and even with the Veil on Wizards get evaporated in seconds if something engages them. Arcane Veil lasts for only 14 seconds and even during those 14 seconds you're not even remotely safe.
- Poor spell balance. Lots of things you never want to cast like the "mirror image" line of spells that do next to nothing. Fan of Flames is absurdly powerful and Fireball is absurdly weak.
- Damage spells lack secondary effects. Knockdown for Fireball, Stun for Crackling Bolt etc.
- Scrolls are tedious to use with no scroll case and 4 quickslots. Not sure about the whole casting from scrolls mechanic. It never was the strongest point of DnD spellcasting system so why copy it in the first place. In Eora magic is channeled through the soul, not from writing on paper, right?
- Anyone can use Wands, Scepters and Rods for the same effect as a Wizard?
- Party members run into FF AoE's (and visible traps) like idiots after their targets die.
- All spells seem to use the same chant
So.. needless to say I'm underwhelmed so far by PoE Wizards.
I cleaned your post up so I could better respond
1. I think this was a lore/design decision. Personally, I wouldn't mind if staves granted more spell casts but less spell choices and added their range bonuses to all non-touch spell ranges. That'd be pretty cool to use the staves as a sort of specialized weapon for specific spells. Example: Grimoires allow for a base 4 casts with 4 spells, why not have staves allow for a base 8 casts with 2 spells in addition to adding their reach bonus to the spells?
2. Yeah, coming from other RPGs, this is what really confused me in the beginning. It's not as bad now, but still I find it irritating that there's effectively no easy to distinguish domains/specializations.
3. I was never found of some guy carrying a magic book, but that's the lore and that's how it goes
4. Wizard has tons of crowd control and damage, but I get your point that some of the design seems counterintuitive.
5. Never had much of a problem since the spells would be active only during combat.
6. That's never been a problem for me, I tend to pause a lot during combat and I enjoy doing so.
7. Never fully played a classic IE game, can't comment on that. The best I could do was 2 hours and even then, there were a ton of usability issues that turned me off from them a long time ago.
8. That's true, some are really small, others are really large, but I think a large amount of variety is good. I never encountered too many problems with "small" AoEs in general.
9. That level four teleporting ability is helpful. Other than that, confuse helps out too.
10. Absolutely. However, I suspect the spells were made that way to prevent wizards from being godly soloists.
12. I always assumed the use of scrolls allowed casters and other classes access to certain spells and therefore, do things they normally couldn't do but at a limited amount.
13. That's really puzzling. I think they wanted anyone to be able to wield any weapon and play however they want. Heh, as if that ever works incredibly well in the long run.
14. That can be avoided by paying close attention and making sure they don't chase other enemies until spells are done casting.
15. From what I've experienced, there are about 2-3 chants for each class. However, hearing the chants can get really irritating and the existence of chants feels very campy/cheesy to me.
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Slicken's prone duration lasts 0 seconds when cast. Oddly enough, it only affected me today.
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The sabre called "Resolution" can be found on an enemy black slime in level 4. Take it and place it on the statue's hand to reveal the wall. You can also retrieve the sabre after you're done with the room(s) there. Currently, there's a small bug where you could end up getting a second copy of Resolution.
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No spells should be per encounter abilities. In the current implementation, it cripples the strategic level of the game. Upon reaching level nine, I am free to use some combination of level one spells in every encounter. This means I no longer have to worry about managing my level one spell resources, effectively eliminating a strategic layer from the game. More damaging, however, is the fact that per encounter spells allows one to save their higher level spells until they're really needed. At lower levels, there's a risk-reward mechanic in that the player has the option of using higher level spells in easier encounters to limit the health loss sustained by the frontline. In turn, this allows the party to push further without using resting resources, but at the expense of spell availability. The relevance of this mechanic diminishes post level nine because, from level nine onwards, the obvious strategy is to use some combination of level one spells in every encounter. Level one spells are potent enough that the player can rely on them to defeat easier encounters before significant health damage is sustained (let's not forget that all the other members of your party grow in strength as they level up too.)
Selecting some limited number of spells to be per encounter abilities could work, but it strikes me as an inelegant approach with problems of its own. For one, it risks limiting the greatest strength of the wizard: their versatility. Forcing a wizard to pick per encounter spells forces the wizard to keep that spell in their grimoire permanently. I suppose this problem could be subverted by having per encounter slots in the grimoire (i.e. whichever spell the player fills that slot with becomes a per encounter ability). However, the main issue is that limiting the number of per encounter spells still has the negative consequence of making it a no-brainer strategy to spam those per encounter spells in every encounter. This seems worse than making all x level spells per encounter, because it inherits all the problems of that system but has the further consequence of limiting the player's spell choices.
That is a whole slew of problems that I didn't think of. The first thing that came to my mind was to suggest a resource system, but given the DnD influence, I believed that would be met with almost universal (and very vocal) negativity. I don't have much experience with the DnD systems, so what do you think is a more elegant approach? Could spell scaling work with such a system and not be overpowered?
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Dunryd Row IS heavily guarded. All of the NPCs there are ciphers, including Lady Webb herself. It's just that they got overwhelmed by the combined forces of the angry mob + the Leaden Key (who probably steered the mob towards Dunryd Row).
It's one of the main concepts of the World of Darkness. An individual vampire/mage/werewolf is powerful, but will go down to 1039848739 mortals attacking him at the same time, especially if those mortals have access to modern technology like explosives, machineguns, flamethrowers, etc. That's why vampires have to rule behind the scenes instead of out in the open.
I'm pretty sure that Dunryd Row tried to defend itself during the riots, but eventually fell to the sheer number of rioters and Leaden Key agents blending in with them.
This whole time I assumed that the agents in the house were merely low level agents who weren't ciphers. When Webb mentioned she lost four ciphers trying to infiltrate the Leaden Key, I interpreted it that it was a big deal losing ciphers and that she meant ciphers were top level agents. Even so, if they were all Ciphers, wouldn't it have made sense to detect the mob far away and at least try to evacuate?
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When placing the sabre "Resolution" found in level 4 of Od Nua onto the statue of the Erl of Yenwood in level 3, the sword is never removed from the inventory/equipment. As a result, when the player selects the option to remove the sword from the statue, the player will gain a second copy of Resolution.
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You list "overpowered at higher levels" as a con but your suggestions don't try to remedy that except for weakening Petrify somewhat; instead they'd lead to even better wizards at high levels.
I would certainly agree with most of what you've written - wizards are quite useful, they just deviate a bit from the standard "walking rocket launcher" variety. They even inherited the somewhat uneven progression e.g. of DnD wizards - very weak in the beginning but getting exponentially stronger.
I wouldn't exactly say that they're "overpowered" even at high levels, esp. compared to some other classes, but they can hold their own.
The wizard's buffs - I found them highly useless, as well. My wizard was not made for melee, but if someone attacked him in melee, I usually didn't bother to buff him but opted for taking out the attacker, instead.
If cast on party members, some buffs would be quite overpowered, though. They're quite strong but balanced by being restricted to characters that don't really gain much from them. Cast on other classes, the synergy effects would be quite strong.
My main beef with Fan of Flames is its friendly fire area of effect. Either my wizard stands in the front to cast it - which I don't want to happen. Or he hits my front line - which is equally stupid. Or I have to maneuvre him around quite a bit - which is tedious and prevents him from doing other useful stuff.
I'm not saying that that should be changed, I just think that FoF does have its drawbacks. (Which doesn't explain why it's better than most other cone spells, sure.)
Strange, I thought I mentioned allowing the wizard to select one single level one, two, and/or three spell as per-encounter spells each with two uses. I thought I conveyed that as an alternative. I suppose I'll edit it then.
Also, I'm interpreting your view of Fan of Flames' large cone as a downside hence being level one. In that case, that could also mean you're implying that small radius cones are more useful at a higher level? How does having a narrower cone for Frost Blast be considered a plus for it to be a level five spell? If Frost Blast had higher damage, or applied a debuff or two, it wouldn't be so bad as it is now.
Suggestion to improve enchanting system and itemization
in Pillars of Eternity: General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
I ignore enchanting mostly because you can't make anything unique out of it. Want a rod with the speed modifier, a crushing lash, and can prone on crits but with reduced crit damage? Too bad. Perhaps kickstarter backers will create that sort of item in the future. The issue I have with the current system is that all the unique enchantments are reserved for specially made items from kickstarter backers and/or items with unique lore attached to it because "unique = one of a kind." Would I be more into enchanting if many if not all the modifiers are available? Yes, absolutely.