Mr. Magniloquent

I'm not sure what kind of point you're trying to make by linking that. None of the kind of tactics that Yonjiro mentions will be possible in PoE. There are effectively no summons, no invisibility, you cannot stealth while in combat, combat spells cannot be cast before combat beings, and immediately end once combat ends. It's what Stun has been arguing. All of the "magic" has been taken out of magic. We're left with contrived, nerfed, and boring facsimiles of what was good about spell casting in the IE games and expected to like it.

And you're not alone. What this thread was originally about was the difficulty or management of combat on Easy difficulty. The conversation unfortunately devolved into an argument about combat mechanics. It was illuminating for awhile to get a basic idea of pros/cons from different perspectives, but it has mostly become silly at this point. That's a quote from myself in the "Invisible Combat Round" thread. Overall combat that does not regard spell casting/ability use is pretty good. The fundamentals are there. Some aspects need more tweaking than others, like engagement, but otherwise it's not bad. Where combat begins to botch itself is when spell casting and abilities enter the equation. Even still, that can be fixed. What is really the question, is whether Obsidian considers anything wrong with the current setup. That's a major concern of mine right now.

What should be used for a more accurate comparison is the BG2 spell selection for levels 1 through 6. That is the expectation that everyone has been asking for and operating off of. Even if you consider that an unfair comparison because many of the spells were added in a sequel game, PoEs spell list does not hold up to scrutiny against even Icewind Dale level 1 through 6 wizard spells. I had always regarded IWD's spell selection inferior, and never understood why since the games utilized the same engine. Now I know. The reason we regard Obsidian (Mr. Sawyer) as hostile towards spell casting, is because he is. It's that simple. It starts with the fear of the "omni-class", so magic with any sort of utility is removed--including those with flexible uses like Scrying and Invisibility spells. It worsened with the fear of out-moding party members, so summons were removed. Then came the terror of damage potential, which made spell damage mediocre at best. Closely followed was the horror of "hard-counters", which eliminated effects like petrification, death, and disintegration. Likewise there was the scourge of the meaningful protections which granted immunities of any form or duration, so they too were laid low. Finally, the most unique and intriguing of spells--of which have never been reproduced in an video game for 15 years....Contingencies, Simulacrums, Project Image, Time Stop, (Limited) Wish, etc. etc.....all purged so that this game might not be tainted by what created an unrivaled classic. That's why were are skeptical. Everything good, intriguing, and superior about spell casting in Baldur's Gate has been eviscerated by design. For the reasons above, I have no hope that the spell selection will improve. It shall not, by edit of Mr. Sawyer. What can improve though, are the miserably handled degrees of everything else. That was actually the point of this thread. In my proposal, I have extensive rebalanced figures for both damage, durations, casting times and much more. Spell damage is rebalanced to make it meaningful, considering its limited use, as well as put the wizard's participation rate about that of any warrior. Durations were rebalanced to make them meaningful beyond 2 or 3 weapon swings. Spell casting and recovery times were balanced and scaled over spell level, so that they appropriate reflect their power level. This is important, as it help improve the "asynchronous" nature of PoE combat. Improved logical consistency of the class by adopting a different resource mechanic that also better reflects the wizard's (imposed) role. Provided a desperately needed friendly-fire mitigation method. That's really what I hoped to discuss within this thread. These are things that are desperately needed and have the potential to be changed. We're not getting a good spell selection. That has been ordained from "on high". What may be changed though, is the execution of what ashes remain of the class, and how that can be improved. Woefully, nobody seems to want to discuss this.

This is my least productive thread ever. I regret creating it. I can at least hope that this thread may be held in effigy as the utter abomination and failure of this class and the broader magic system. When the obnoxious guest on the twitch stream selects the Wizard class at 1:26, Josh's inflection rises almost to a crack as he says, "Alright". I think he knows.

Right. License. Permission. There is nothing good about that. Business licenses are immoral. It is The State claiming that you may not operate and enterprise to support your life without paying your "protection money". Fail to pay your protection money, and....maybe your business doesn't do so good. Maybe some guys with guns come on over a shut you down. Capiche? This is The State contending that *you* are its property. That's the full circle of my first comment in this thread. The State is immoral, and voting is legitimizing that evil. An eligible voter turn-out of 33% is joyous news. I suggests that people are waking up the the false dichotomy of Red vs. Blue--and therefore the true nature of The State.

No. ISIS is a creation of the USA, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Britain, Jordan, and Qatar. The entire business was rooted in Syria. Those actors I listed above have been arming, training, funding, and equipping terrorists in Syria since....2011 really. Even the alleged chemical weapons attacks. Those crimes got hushed because it was discovered that Saudi Arabia had been supplying the chemicals. Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia even boasted how no terrorist activity goes on in Chechnya without his blessing. Prince Bandar was then the head of Saudi Arabia's intelligence and secret police agencies. Even the name ISIS screams western puppet. Why would a hardline Whabbist Islamic cult give itself an English name with an acronym that spells out the name of a pagan god? Really? ISIS is about destabilizing Syria for several reasons: Permit the creation of a gas pipeline from Saudi Arabia and Qatar to Europe, so that Russian gas may be forgone. Further isolating the real prize, Iran by eliminating its ally--a perceived threat to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Creating a boogeyman for USA domestic consumption so that The War of Terror can be justified. Former denying Russia a warm-water port--though this has been outmoded by the secession of Crimea. ISIS also has tacit support from Turkey, as ISIS is severely harming Kurds--of whom they are opposed. The frightening reality is that ISIS is just another western foil like that of Al Qaeda was, just refreshed for a new generation. ISIS does not exist outside of western funding, training, and general support.

The combat isn't fun, and i don't see how this will really fix it. That's really what it comes down to. Combat isn't as fun as it should be, but engagement is far from even the #1 reason why that's the case. It just one of many contributors. My thoughts are similar to Shevek's in that I feel the engagement problem is a bit overstated even in its currently broken form. If done properly, I think engagement will not only cease being a problem, but an enhancement. I also find it much more realistic and conceptually preferable than any alternatives--even its absence.

A business is personal property. It is no different than the shirt you are wearing. Just as your shirt can be clothing, kindling for a fire, or a wash rag, a business serves the purposes of the owner. It is how the person expends their time and resources to live within the world. There are few things more personal than that. Forcibly compelling the business (owner) under the threat of violence and theft to work for the benefit of another against their will is the very definition of slavery. Bigotry is undesirable, but slavery is not a solution.

I do believe that it should be permitted. That is different from saying that I am fine with it. The alternative is slavery. Slavery is not a rational or acceptable solution for bigotry. The moment you start entitling others to the lives and property of another--let alone against their will, you have no basis for morals.

Yeah, and now imagine that the same couple wanted to host their wedding in your own home too. If the bakers are not free to operate their property according to their will, then how is their home any different? Where do you draw the line? You can't--not without being hypocritical and illogical. Bigotry is undesirable, but codifying in law that one must be compelled to interaction is slavery. Attempting to correct bigotry with slavery is an outrageous proposition. Property rights are an extension of self ownership. If the law can compel a baker to offer one service, then they can be legally compelled to provide any service. It actually ceases being a service, because the act is not consensual--it's compelled labor. That's slavery.

Hahaha. That was a typo! I did edit that to a penalty rather than a bonus. The total changes I would make to disengagement attacks would be thus: Respect weapon reach. Remove damage bonus and accuracy bonus. Incur accuracy penalty. Incur normal recovery time. Essentially, it would give a warrior a free but inaccurate chance to interrupt and potentially damage any passerby. So yes, it would function like you say. Kiting characters could be caught, rushing characters could be inhibited, etc. Grazing damage is often trivial in my opinion, but it does add up. So while it wouldn't paralyze movement, it would eliminate silly chases or waltzing by opponent shenanigans.

The only thing encouraging about this election was the voter turn-out. Only 1 in 3 eligible voters cared to show up. That is indicative that perhaps the other two understand the false dichotomy of Red vs. Blue. Nothing about this election will change anything. Economic liberty will still decrease. Personal liberty will still decrease. That is the function of The State. It is legalized crime and oppression. Voting for who gets to hold the reigns of violence and theft is merely legitimizing that evil. Hopefully poor voter turnout is a tacit realization of this.

I think you're being a bit dramatic IndiraLightfoot. I can't say that I feel overwhelmed by combat, particularly since v301. I did pause a great deal in the IE games, much in the way Kjaamor describes, so that may be part of it. Have you tried the slow-motion option?

No, you didn't really fix anything with this. With that much damage it still makes moving around for tactical repositioning ALWAYS a bad idea. You're going to have to waste a heal every time you do it. And i already explained 3 pages back why you can't balance the mechanic by making the damage lower. Because you either make the engagement pointless on normal or you didn't fix anything on Path of the Damned Also being able to disengage without the use of abilities makes combat even less tactical than it's "trying" to be now. While I haven't listed it here, I actually in the past have always encouraged that disengagement attacks get an accuracy penalty, to pressure them towards being grazes. It's not listed here, so I understand why you replied in that manner. Engagement has much more to do with than dealing damage. It (theoretically) allows melee character to catch kiting ranged attackers, improves warrior ability to block and protect other classes (very necessary, since buffs are completely nerfed by design), and imposes a damage penalty on ignoring a combatant. It serves many functions. That disengagement provides an interrupt is the most important of them. If nearly all of the mechanisms where disengagement attacks operate outside of normal combat removed, engagement would largely act as a brief movement inhibition. Movement would still be possible and practical, but using the disengagement abilities would be an asset rather than a necessity. *Edit. I also don't think using Path of the Damned is a good context for balancing the systems of this game. It's a kind of bonus punitive mode that is designed to be well...punitive. Anything that misbehaves in that mode is pretty ignorable in my opinion.

I was under the impression that first the spell had to "hit", then it has to overcome the various DT/DR/Resistances. Same as melee attacks. Is that not the case? It's one roll. Accuracy is compared against a defense statistic. That difference is then added to your d100 roll, which determines the hit quality type (miss, graze, hit, critical). Damage threshold and damage resistance are then applied to the outcome (if applicable). So: First, the Accuracy is determined. While this does determine if it hits, anything that does strike uses this same value for determining ultimate damage. (Accuracy - Defense + d100 Roll) Let's say that this outcome was a graze. The damage would then be calculated at: Damage Roll - 50% - Damage Threshold - Damage Resistance Percentage. Anything that does not use damage merely omits the Damage Threshold and Resistance subtractions. It is all one roll though. Just think of a miss as a -100% modifier, rather than a separate ranged touch attack type component. *Edited for clarity.

Changing your weapon damage values to compensate for an increased might bonus to account for overall DR & DT balance is questionable. That alters the fundamentals in a way where might changes from being less about style, and more necessary than not. Essentially, players who now opt out of moving might above baseline (10) will be penalized, rather than simply forgo enjoyment of a bonus. I agree in your pondering if they are reading these forums anymore. The only time I ever do meaningful impact with any weapon, spell, or ability is typically through a critical hit. Damage is secondary to accuracy, and that's where the real outcomes are decided.

I was typing for some time to add to this, but you've really said it all for me. Quoted for truth, as the vernacular goes.

I backed this game for Infinity Engine combat, not Neverwinter Nights 2 combat with an isometric camera (which is what this game is atm). I am not the only backer that has this opinion, there are many of us. lol Unabashed opinion stated as fact. You claim to speak for the nameless masses very often. Invoking some nameless majority as supporting you is not an argument, let alone a factual one. Not an argument. Everything that is wrong with engagement can be addressed by changing the bonuses it grants. Problem: Engagement operates outside of weapon reach. Solution: Restrain it to weapon reach, like very other attack. Problem: Disengagement attacks inflict too much damage. Solution: Remove the damage and accuracy bonuses. Problem: Disengagement attacks can be exploited through kiting--the very thing they were supposed to inhibit. Solution: Have disengagement attacks incur a recovery time, as per normal combat. There it is. Done. Solved. Every problem with engagement resolved. Maybe that's not good enough though. Perhaps Obsidian should instead remove engagement, totally rebuild their AI to account for its absence, conceptualize, construct, debug, and balance an entire slew of ad-hoc abilities for creating "stickiness", generate new AI for the deployment of these abilities, all the while not increasing the amount of pausing required of the player through the active use of these new hypothetical abilities? Would that work out better, do you think?

Actually, it is not. For the price of one scroll and one staff (in vanilla BG2), a level eight fighter can defeat The Almighty Kangaxx. Mind you, it was contrived as an insanely difficult boss to be a homage to Gary Gygax. It's an aside of the game, something that was never meant to be fair. It doesn't even matter to PoE. Hard counters will never happen because of Mr. Sawyer. Don't bother arguing, you've already been delivered what you're debating over. Does magic in PoE really feel better than in BG2? Anyway...back to a conversation relevant to this game. You might as well walk away now then. That aspect is most certainly not going to change at all. What is your complaint with the accuracy system though? The saving throw that enemies get essentially is the accuracy. The wizard's accuracy must overcome a defense of the opponent, whether that be Fortitude, Reflex, Will, or Deflection. That's not really any different than D&D 3.0 Edition. The problems with this resolution system are in "quibbling over pennies" as it's the degrees of things like DT, DR, Damage:Hit Point ratios, spells per day, base class accuracy that are really mucking things up. The general mechanic, which is conceptually sound, is being mired by poor tuning. Believe me that I echo your opinions both on the BG spell casting and it's comparison to the PoE "spell casting". Right now PoE spell casting is a joke that nobody is laughing at. I resent it. To remedy that problem though, an amicable foundation must be set before we can even approach getting better spell design. Once a fundamental power curve and standardized intervals are established, spells can actually be created in a sensible, consistent, and superior fashion. You will not get better spells until the full scope of the class's output and features have been settled. It's the very reason why I started this thread. I wanted to get this conversation going, because it's painfully obvious Obsidian hasn't.

Emphasis mine. Agreed many times over though.

So does everyone just want to bicker, or would they like to discuss the actual level of appropriate balance? Consider this table as reference. Each has the endurance displayed for each level for each durability type (low, average, high, very high). To determine the total health per day, multiply it by that class's modifer. For example, Monks have "High" endurance, and use a modifier of x5. At a neutral constitution, this would give them a daily health of 1540. Again, this is for illustrative purposes. Now look at the damage tables I have arranged. They are setup to use a default hit quality distribution of 5% miss, 45% graze, 45% hit, and 5% critical. This is all relative of course, and the wizard's accuracy outcomes would be lower, as they have "Low" starting accuracy. The table with reference as to damage per spell level is at the bottom. They are setup so that their power scales linearly with level. The three large tables above them are the total damage output based on the hit quality distribution table whether the damage rolls are lowest, average, or highest possible. In the bottom right corner, you can see the damage output to total health (using a monk as comparison) are very close. This ratio stays fair intact even below level 20 comparisons, because all scales were linear matches to the endurance progression. At first, a health to damage ratio of 6:7 (high) or even 8:7 (average) might seem a bit much, but take into account that these values do not take damage resistance or damage threshold into account. Furthermore, every single spell cast by a wizard would need to be a damage devoted spell. When factoring those considerations, it's clear to see that the total actual damage output would be much lower than represented here. Even still, I feel like these values make wizard damage more meaningful, consistent, and ensure that they have a relative "adventuring day" very similar to any warrior class. That was one of my fundamental efforts in achieving balance. As a note, just like outlined in the full paper, these values are balanced through a spell point system where each spell has a casting cost equal to its level. That table is provided to the left. What's good about this, is that if a player wants to cast non-stop all day with lower spells or reserve themselves for major actions, they can. Either way, (before DR & DT) total damage output potential is the same. What do you guys think of these damage figures? Do they feel appropriate?

Yes, this was deliberate. Mr. Sawyer feels that the wizard class within D&D is an omniclass that cannot be suffered or endured. Its very presence breaks the fabric of any game system. As such, he obliterated the class and scattered its ashes across all of the others. See Quetzalcoatl's quote: While I agree with you, and will be modding this travesty out, I feel it would be prudent to try and do what can be done now to minimize that effort. I most certainly agree with what many have said here in that the wizard's spell selection is merely dismal. This is not likely to change before modding. Even on the video where Mr. Sawyer talked about "some cool spells", he talked about the god-awful switch-positions spells, and a few spells were the wizard conjures a magical weapon. That should give you an indication. I feel like I shouldn't have put the bullet points in my original post. Massive amounts of those files were dedicated to re-balancing damage, durations, cast times, and even spell per day to provide for everything people have mentioned here. I took considerable effort to balance the wizard's damage per day output to where each spell would be meaningful without being "unbalanced" or game-breaking. Durations were adjusted in a thorough manner as well. Casting speeds were staggered on a linear scale to the spell level, and the effective spells per day was even shown under all of these new balanced parameters. Did no one look at those values? Even the concerns of being able to cast all day vs producing few but very powerful spells was addressed. That was one of the reasons to adopt soul/spell points. Again, did anyone actually look at the values for damage, duration, casting times, and effective spells per day? I really think that you guys will find them worth-while.

The wizard class is indisputably the most disastrous class in both concept and implementation of all the classes within Pillars of Eternity. I have been diligently pondering ways of salvaging the class, while staying true to the unique setting constraints of Pillars of Eternity. Linked here are two sister documents detailing those ideas. The first is a PDF explaining the general concepts, and the second is a MS Excel file with lavish pivot tables attempting to demonstrate proof-of-concept for these ideas and rebalanced variables. They are designed to be changed "on-the-fly", and I encourage anyone and everyone to do so. The Recompiled Wizard Basic Overview: Adopt a Soul/Spell Point resource system for the wizard class. Reconfigure to the grimiore to behave in more significant manner to both the class and setting. Suggested mechanisms for mitigating friendly-fire. Rebalanced casting times. Rebalanced and standardized spell damage and spell durations. I feel that the best aspects of my proposals are that all but one of them are quite mundane changes. I made an effort to have these solutions incorporate existing and functioning PoE systems. I'd like to know what you backers think about these ideas, and start a meaningful discussion about what ideas we can generate to improve this class. Many players--new and old alike, will likely gravitate towards one of the "core four". Pillars of Eternity will not be a success if viewed through the lens of the wizard class as it exists, and that is a dangerous proposition.

..that's a good observation. And sure, with a flat bonus for all party-members, this begs to be exploited. So looogically, if Obsidian wants to keep the attribute system they have now, they would obviously need to change the disengagement mechanic. If the disengagement bonus was made lower, and we ended up with perhaps some sort of penalty as well, it would be less broken -- and identical to NWN and the IE games, with all the problems that system had. It's not my preferred solution. And I just wanted to point out that if you wanted attacks of opportunity with any sort of consistency - in the earlier variant - then you would have to sacrifice something else. And the engagement limit would be important, and so on. You would then have powerful interrupt penalties for some specialists, and the engagement block that Josh described with how a wizard would actually be defended by a skilled fighter, instead of being swarmed by mobs running past the fighter while blowing raspberries, like in the IE games -- would actually work.... ...The criticism against that system: it is complicated and casual people don't understand it, sadly also applies to the new variant. Perhaps to an even greater extent. But yeah, I you're absolutely right that the current system could be made less obviously exploitable, by reducing the bonus from disengagement attacks. And that it would just make the payoff from exploiting it lower - not actually "fix the system". It would still be broken. Meanwhile, I think it's worth pointing out that the reason why that "problem" now exists, and that the engagement system is broken, is that all classes have gained bonuses that didn't exist in the earlier variant of the rules. And that this is the direct cause of why it is at all exploitable.... ....It's just my opinion - but I think the way Obsidian has gone about implementing things in the beta reeks of that conclusion to the project. From looking at it, I also think it's highly unlikely that they will retread anything, because the new implementations seem so intertwined with the rest. So I really don't think it's actually doable for them, technically, to go back, even if they wanted to. Doing so would also essentially admit that they've wasted several months for no reason, while then potentially decide to remake a solution that "the community hates". And I don't think anyone at Obsidian has the balls to do that now. *shrug* You are absolutely correct in that having changed the fundamentals of their system, that layers which were dependent on them have suffered. I'm not entirely sure what bonus you are referring to though. The item I can think of is that disengagement attacks guarantee interruption, whereas it was initially dependent on Resolve. Am I understanding you correctly? I do think it has a place though. Engagement makes formations practical by providing better blocking and can subdue kiting shenanigans that the IE games were rife with. I do not think creating a dozen or two contrived ad-hoc abilities would solve tactical movement. That's one of my major criticisms for this game. Abilities, spells, the classes themselves...they are all kind of "boot-strapped" in to satisfy one particular issue. There is no cohesive structure to many of them, and it is largely responsible for any asynchronous nature in PoE's combat. Then there is the issue of creating the AI to handle using these abilities under sensible parameters, which somehow act timely without being preempted by recovery, and cause the player to pause even more often than they currently do. Engagement provides a unified mechanism that will occur automatically and therefore, predictably. First, disengagement needs to respect weapon reach. Anything else is nonsensical. Second the bonuses to damage and accuracy need to be removed. If it is an opportunistic action, then it is reflexive and impulsive. There is nothing about such an action that rationalizes extra damage and/or extra heightened accuracy. Third, due to its split-second nature, there needs to be an accuracy penalty. This will cause it to hit less, and when it does--much more likely be a graze. That is far more representative of the nature of the action. Finally, having disengagement incur its own recovery would do much to keep it under control. At the worst, I see this kind of disengagement attack as much less evil than the alternatives--even its absence.

@ Nipsen Keep in mind that disengagement attacks currently posses an accuracy bonus, damage bonus, operate without a recovery time, and ignore weapon reach. Essentially, engagement attacks function entirely outside of all normal combat mechanisms. If disengagement attacks were to respect weapon reach, possess a recovery time, have their damage bonus removed, and an accuracy penalty (more reasonable) than a bonus, do you really think disengagement would be broken or abusive?