Lephys

Thanks for emphasizing my point. A spell or beneficial effect can't be both: 1) short-term and potent, AND 2) long-term and more of a background bonus that doesn't directly support emergent/dynamic combat tactics

Maybe so. I guess the technical definition of "buffs" isn't as high on my list of priorities as the actual intentions and effects of the approach being taken with PoE, as well as this discussion. *shrug* That might be what you're talking about here. We're not even really quite on-topic anymore. But, people started talking about the innards of combat systems in relation to overall game difficulty of cRPGs, and thus we got back to the permeation of buffs, pre-buffing, and buff-debuff sub-battles taking place in the midst of battles. Then I said my bit about what typical pre-buffing in existing games is built upon, and how PoE's system seems to be taking an entirely different approach. And here we are, with you still baffled by the completely ludicrous idea that is "no pre-buffing." However, you are correct in that the only words Josh has spoken have specifically stated the word "spell" in there. So, maybe we'll be allowed to pre-buff with all sorts of stuff that just don't happen to be spells. I mean, I'm pretty excited to use torches on everyone before a fight, so that they can all have +2 to cold resistance and +2 to accuracy. Maybe I'll wrap them all in blankets, too. Rubber blankets. AND coat them in non-flammable oil. That's bonuses to Cold, Fire, and Shock resistances. AND the oil adds a bonus to grapple checks (slippery). Maybe attach a bunch of mirrors to the rubber blanket cloaks. -10% to the accuracy of anyone targeting you, because they can't figure out where the hell you are. That plus torches = blindness to enemies. Another buff! Annnnd then we should be good to go to begin combat.

Mhmhmhm...thats...thin. But I appreciate the effort I dunno.... I'd say the Wizard shapes magic, he just uses tools (namely, a Grimoire -- all the associated materials and techniques) to do it, instead of some innate ability. Also, if his soul energy is in no way affiliated with the operation of the Grimoire, then why does switching grimoires mid-combat result in a delay while the new grimoire attunes itself to the wielder? And grimoires use spells, but someone's gotta devise and "create" (in the sense of coming up with the "recipe/formula" for imbuing a page in a grimoire with the correct properties necessary to cast this spell through that page/grimoire) those spells, right? *shrug* Honestly, what Wizards do in this lore makes me think of alchemists in the Full Metal Alchemist world.

Beware the Ides of March, plus the Ides of March... plus one! O_O

False. So, you want two versions of every buff? Not only that, but you're also claiming that the desire for pre-buffing generally is accompanied by the desire for non-pre-castable versions of the exact same buffs? Seriously? I apologize. I didn't realize literally anything that affects your character temporarily is automatically a buff. Armor is a buff. When you take it off, you lose its armor value. A torch is a buff. It produces light around the character holding it for some duration. Come on, Stun. The entire core of this is not being able to cast/use these effects before combat. Forgive me for being under the impression that the term "buffs" was being used here to describe, specifically, those effects that pertain directly to combat. Hell... Stealth Mode is a buff, and you can use THAT outside of combat. It boosts your ability to detect hidden things, and your ability to not be detected. Why would you think Obsidian has some issue with any and all effects that could ever possibly be useful outside of combat? Specifically on invisibility, I'm not sure we'll see that used outside of combat, as it would kind of defeat the purpose of the Stealth skill. "I've spent the last 8 levels worth of skill points on Stealth! I can now sneak past almost ANYTHING!" (Wizard) "Oh, is that so? My Stealth skill is 0. *casts Invisibility.*" Again... maybe in the spell lore, such effects exist but can only be made to "stick" for very brief periods. Thus, this would still allow an in-combat use (breaking targeting, repositioning without the enemy's knowledge, etc.), but a 7-second (example number) invisibility wouldn't really help you go scouting around an enemy camp or infiltrate a fortress. Not much, anyway. In extremely specific circumstances, sure.

AND that form would gain like +1,000 to climbing. Because goats are friggin' magical and climb smooth, vertical walls with naught but hooves. If I play a Druid, I'm going to dub the sequence of Twin Stones followed immediately by Winter Wind one of my signature combos. Its name shall be "Rock You Like a Hurricane."

Ahh. Sorry, I cannot view the update video at the moment. I just knew it wasn't "wands, scepters, and wands," heh, and I couldn't remember what the third thing was (that had been mentioned before -- the set of "weapons" that used Blast). Oooh! Another question! With the things like Minoletta's Minor Missiles, that fire out multiple projectiles, will we be able to take advantage of that by targeting up to one target per missile? And, even if not (in which case T_T), does each missile get its own Attack Resolution and damage roll, etc.? Also, on the note of Minoletta's Minor Missiles... I grant to the design team the Award of Alliterative Alacrity. ^_^

I hate to be the one to respond to this awesome update by pointing out a typo, but my android programming will not allow me to skip this step: Dare I assume that this... ... is supposed to say "staves, scepters, and wands"? Also... it is now my goal in life to generate the longest ever bounce-streak between my Wizard and an opposing Wizard, both of whom are using Minor Arcane Reflection. SO EXCITED ABOUT WIZARDS! ... AND DRUIDS, TOO, AS WELL, ALSO! Could you guys please make the details of this game somehow less excitable? You're killin' me, here... Also, splendid portraits! Is the blue-skinned, shark-toothed guy an Aumaua? And finally, I've gotta just mention how much I adore the multiple aspects to spells. Like the Wizard's Dimensional Shift, which provides both the utility of swapping positions, AND the ability to offensively smite lots of foes flanked between your Wizard and his ally. Or the Druid's Twin Stones (probably the best example, off the top of my head). Maybe you're a Druid, and that's your favorite spell, and you're playing the game and having your fun. When suddenly, FOES WHO ARE RESISTANT TO CRUSH DAMAGE! OH NOES! Now you have to stop being that awesome boulder-launching Druid for the time-being, right? WRONG! Force, flush, or otherwise finnagle those baddies near a solid obstacle of some sort, and BOOM! Piercing Shrapnel! It's like TWO spells for the price of ONE! 8D I love it... I'm considering proposal. Yeah. That much. o_o

I don't hope they specifically don't have them. I kinda hope they do have them. I just don't like the fact that they're established as the Wizard's uniform, instead of a Wizard's uniform style.

^ Addendum: Number of times the dwarf scratched all other butts during combat.

I hear ya on reactions, Jarrakul. I think the ability to react (in a limited fashion, mind you) makes turn-based combat a LOT better. Look at almost anything turn-based that's really good, and it's typically got some form of interrupt: Magic the Gathering has instant spells, D&D has free actions (most PnP rulesets have something similar), etc. A great example of what I like to see in turn-based combat is stuff like Overwatch, which most games have now (that deal heavily with ranged combat). My only complaint is... why can you basically have a prepared action to use during the enemy's turn, but your characters can ONLY spaztically shoot the first thing they see? In XCOM, you can have two people on overwatch, watching the same corner, and when a little piddly 4HP alien comes around the corner, they both unload their entire magazines on it, even if the very first bullet hit it. If the game's cool with you saving your attack for the enemy's turn, in a prepared fashion, then why can't you at least get some kind of prompt when your character is ABLE to take their shot? Then, you, the player, can just be like "Nah." Or at least set a priority/order to it. If there are 5 enemies in that building, you might want a lot of people to take their shots whenever any number of those foes emerge into sight, if they're coming through the opening you're watching. But, that doesn't mean you want everyone to shoot the first thing that pops out. It's not like you'd just be giving the player completely free control over when and whom to shoot on not-the-PC's turn. If you opt to not take your shot, then you just don't get to attack that enemy, and you have to hope another one comes around. At the very least, you should be able to have someone only shoot if the first person's overwatch doesn't kill the thing or something. A little control like that over reactions would be lovely. Another idea is maybe a branch reaction? I wouldn't want any more than 2 options, but, maybe: "If I get attacked this round, do this. Otherwise, do this." Or other stuff, like heal-overwatch, etc. Just... conditional reactions. If the game's okay with you spending your action-time during the enemy's turn, then I don't see why it matters what you can do, as long as you can't just elaborately target whoever you want, or reposition, etc. You still have to decide what the conditions are on your turn, when you hold/prepare the reaction. Doesn't mean your character's incapable of doing anything but spazming.

^ I'd like to point out Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 as an excellent example of a good emotional-response-evoking villain. You hate him, but as an adversary. As a threat to be taken down. You feel a need to kill him. He literally antagonizes you the whole time, rather than walking around trying to exude evil or something. He's just a horrible person.

Yeah, it might just be stuff like "once every member of the party has performed their current action," or "action queue is empty," or "someone drops below 50% health." *shrug* I'm sure there'll be an array of options that allow you to have it auto-pause anywhere from just occasionally when crazy stuff happens to every half-second, practically.

I don't think there's an issue with any and all redundancy. I don't want Steve the Fighter to have some completely different "Steve The Fighter Skill Tree" as opposed to some other Fighter's skill tree. BUT, it's nice if he's got something unique about him. I mean, he's probably a fully grown adult, right? So, he's had different life experiences than other fighters, and maybe he's developed a favored technique/ability that other people don't really use because they had no need to develop it like he did. THAT kind of thing is nice. It's a bit like the difference between characters of the same class but different races (in fact, that would even do it); maybe your Tiefling Rogue can become shadows for 5 seconds, while a Rogue of a different race cannot, because that's a Tiefling ability (for example... I'm just making this up, so it's probably not really a Tiefling ability in actual lore/rulesets that involve Tieflings). That sort of thing. There's something about that character that makes them not a cookie-cutter, functionally. That's always nice. Even if it's just that they come with unique background traits or something, that provide passive bonuses.

Well, and the other thing is, you didn't even have a quiver in Skyrim, right? And you just "paused" into the inventory screen and selected a different arrow, mid combat, and started firing a different type of arrow all of the sudden. If the system keeps up with everything in a more simulationist manner, and it fits okay into the gameplay, then awesome. But, it would be a bit silly to insist that each and every arrow be accounted for, only to maintain the giant abstraction that is automagical quiver re-filling/arrow switching. Thus, if that's deemed useful enough, I'd rather the system just abstract the physical arrow quantities. It's not really switching to "unlimited"; your ammo usage is still limited, just not by physical counts in your inventory. It's simply limited in a different way. The only thing I'd consider being truly unlimited would be your basic arrow, just so a character with 10 levels worth of points spent on bows and bow-related talents and abilities doesn't suddenly become completely useless just because he's fired basic arrows so many times. But, yeah, the actual aspect of purchasing arrows, just to have something to fire, and taking them all with you, and refilling your quiver mid-combat, etc., is about as interesting to me as the aspect of making sure your character brought enough undergarments, and having them go to a merchant stall and pay 2 silver every time they go back to town to have all their clothing washed.

I kinda like it when specifically magical equipment -- i.e. "this head equipment grants +2 Intellect and +5% spell accuracy," etc. -- gets its own style. Like... instead of being a metal helmet for protection, or just fancy cloth or something, it's a crystal that, when placed against your head, sort of "grows" into a crystally circlet. Stuff like that. Not that you can't also have "regular" armor (functional armor pieces) or attire (Cloaks, hoods, etc.) that boost specifically magical capabilities. But, it's nice when some items are strictly magical in nature. If I want something on my head to boost my focus and spell radius, or cast speed, I don't necessarily want a leather helm, or a regular hat.

No offense, but you just described every game ever. Except Lemmings. 8P

I'm sorry you feel this is nonsense, but it isn't. You're trying to read into it, instead of just taking what I'm saying at face value. I'm trying to point out an aspect that's either/or, and you're deciding that I'm encompassing the entirety of support effects into my argument. Wanting pre-buffs generally means that you don't want the same buffs to have in-combat versions. Right? So, in any given situation, you can either have the buff work short-term, with a very significant factor adjustment, so that it can be more effectively used in emergent combat tactics, OR you can have the buff work longer with a less significant factor adjustment, and have it function more passively. If you have both, then you just have a stacked, redundant effect. At the very least, you've got a convoluted set of two different versions of every buff effect in your game. Or some just have passive versions, and some just have active versions. In which case, why? "You can block 10% of arrows with a shield of wind, for like 3 minutes, but you cannot make a more focused shield of wind that blocks 80% of arrows for like 10 seconds." You're not commenting at all on the point about lore. Why can't the world simply deal with very short-term magical enhancements to people? Maybe casting spells gives away your position (because people are all using soul energy, basically, for their abilities, regardless of class, so maybe they can all detect it within a decent radius if you start emitting bursts of it when buffing everyone), so combat "starts" when you start casting spells anywhere near any enemies. Thus, it's so infeasible to pre-buff that, like being able to just waltz into a town and start burning down everyone's houses, the game simply doesn't let you do it. *shrug* I get that it's not your preference, but you can quit pretending leisurely stacking effects on your party before combat even starts is somehow more of a thinking man's game than having to make use of much shorter buff-effect windows and specific effects in the midst of combat. Pre-buffing and buff-debuff-dispel-fests are their own thing, which is great and all, but so is this different approach that PoE's taking. Neither approach is the same thing if you just dilute them with one another, and they happened to choose the latter. Pretending that's somehow wrong or unreasonable is about as useful as claiming they should be making PoE an action shooter instead of an RPG, or that it should be single-player only instead of party-based. None of that is right or wrong. It's just mutually exclusive.

A staff?! Most Wizards I've ever known of have had maybe one assistant/apprentice, tops.

I think, at the time, no other game that was as technologically advanced really tried to embody PnP mechanics like the IE games. Most games just went "Meh... we'll just simplify everything to ARPG mechanics." So, did those games have their flaws? Sure. But... well, it's something to build on. Since those several years of games, that style of game design attempt has kind of died off. So, this is more picking up where they left off, in the same spirit of game making. Not so much copying the exact design because it was perfect. It's more about the creative aspects of the game. Sort of the skeleton of the game. Honestly, I don't think you're gonna hate this game or anything. As was pointed out already, it seems like your general issues with the IE games (notably with combat) are quite similar to Josh and co's, overall. So, PoE will probably be mostly what you liked about the IE games, with improvements (from your perspective) to what you didn't like about them. Not perfect, but probably better.

If you think the options are "buff/debuff wars" or "BLIND HULK SMASHING!", then I don't think you quite comprehend the variety of tactical aspects, here. I guess all real-life historical battles have just been a bunch of idiots smashing each other, since they were devoid of pre-combat buffing. It's not moving in the opposite direction, by the way. It's just a fork in the road. You can either go right, or go left. You can't go both, but that doesn't mean your options are forward or backward. I don't think anyone's arguing against passive buffs being in the game at all. I haven't seen anyone argue that. But, typical combat pre-buffing (going into combat with a bunch of beneficial effects stacked on your party) is kind of built upon the foundation of buffs, in general, being heavily passive. As I've pointed out multiple times, you can't really stack a bunch of 7-second buffs on your party, then charge into combat with all of those effects on. But you can do a lot of DIFFERENT stuff with 7-second buffs. You can ALSO cast longer-lasting, less-strictly-potent buffs. It's pretty convoluted if you just say "Hey, player... totally go into combat with +10 to a bunch of things from passive buffs, AND you can cast short-duration, redundant bonus spells that are more potent, on top of that! 8D!" Well, what's going to stop you from just pre-buffing the shyte out of your party, then using all the short-term buffs every single time? When would that be a bad idea? Why would you decide "No... I'll just skip those free 7 bonuses I could cast before combat, and JUST use well-timed, in-combat buffs to my advantage", or vice versa? Never. It's also not the obligation of the lore to make sure magic is capable of long-term, cautionary effects. Again, in a game without magic, no one would be insisting on passive buffs. But then, simply because magic exists, and OMG! OBVIOUSLY real-life magic offers the convenient ability to protect everyone from fire for the duration of an entire cave-system expedition. And, maybe an item can do it, but then only one can work at a time or they interfere with each other. You could impose that restriction on abilities, but then, that'd be no less arbitrary than simply having ability-based effects only be short-term, because lore. Besides, with items, it could even be not-magic. So it wouldn't just be an item doing a spell's work. Maybe to protect yourself from fire, you use that substance that fire-eaters and those people who light parts of themselves on fire use. You smear it all over yourself, and boom. You're not flammable and resist heat. You can't smear that on yourself, AND ointments/substances that protect you from 7 other things. And you can't put anti-arrow ointment on you, either. So, if magic can only maintain an anti-magic barrier for so long, then it can only do it for so long. I'm not sure how to argue against the reasons magical lore is whatever it is in a given IP. *shrug*

In all fairness, that's just a subjective claim. He should have. The game was better. I'd like to know why/how, as that's what's most important. And better than what? Better than simply being devoid of those streamlining things? Or better than this other way that buffs are being handled in PoE's current design? Because that's two different things, too. I didn't word that well. I didn't mean to propose the option of buffs that don't somehow affect/support active combat features. I meant to more specifically design them to be especially integrated into the active aspect of things. It's the entire approach to buff design. Look at turn-based games. They tend to have effects that last for 3 or 4 turns. If you take out the turns and speed that up to real-time, it's just short-duration buffs, that last just long enough to affect a significant allotment of stuff. You could even take the duration completely out, and just use charges, for example. Instead of 10 seconds of +20% accuracy attacks, your next 4 attacks could just have +20% accuracy. It's not that having 5 minutes, or 30 attacks of +5% accuracy isn't tactical, but you can't make as significant of tactical decisions that incorporate the use of that, specifically, in what you do and how you do it. It's much more of a background thing. But, yeah, you can't pre-buff in turn-based games. It's just a different approach to buffs, is all. And, turn-based or not, it's the same principle. Because you have to use combat time to cast them, they're usually of more significance than a passive bonus or immunity. At least, the timing/order of your spells (including the buffs) becomes much more significant, as well as how you make use of the buff's duration. If you make a passive, long-lasting-and-stacked-with-plenty-of-other-buffs-because-you-just-cast-them-all-before-combat buff that potent, it's not really of much significance. The significance is diluted to basically "is it in effect, or is it not?" *shrug*. I don't know how to just say what that difference is in a simple phrase. I really don't. Examples are the best thing I know of to point it out. But, it's a mechanical relationship/ratio. There's something lacking in passive, "background" buffs that's kind of nice to have. And, to really have it, you can't have passive pre-buffing be an allowed thing that grants all your buff effects. Either the timing of the effect durations is significant (happens after combat starts), or it isn't. Fair enough, but I'm not really worried about whether or not combat was more difficult, as much as I'm worried about how it objectively differed. If the buffs were so insignificant that it didn't really even affect your tackling of the encounter at all to go without buffs, then that's something I'd not like to see, either. Which is where potions/items could come in. Between equipment enchantments and potential "protect from X" potions (or similar items), I think that's plenty of preparation for a situation such as your example. You don't really need a spell or ability that can bestow that on everyone, nor do you need to be able to stack buffs against all the other factors you could deal with. "Salamanders have claws... PROTECTION FROM CLAWS! It'll be dark in here... EVERYONE GETS INFRAVISION! The Fire elementals will be using magic. PROTECTION FROM MAGIC! The Giants will have high strength. BOOSTED ARMOR BUFF!" I think you get the idea. If you wanna cast all those while combat's going on, and they don't conveniently all last for the entire duration of combat, be my guest. But, if you want to just cast all that before combat, then what's the point of having all those facets of these enemies that make that combat unique? Is it the challenge of having to figure out that the square peg goes in the square hole, and the round peg goes in the round hole, etc.? Look at all the wholes, then just cast all the appropriately shaped pegs. Even if you're not getting full immunity from everything, there's not much point in having so many differences amongst foes if the entire buff system is simply designed to equalize all the factors to some degree before you even draw your sword. *shrug* Personally, I'd rather spend time actually fighting the enemy, with him fighting me, instead of spending all my time trying to destroy all his nukes while preventing him from destroying mine. I'd rather just not have the figurative nukes, if they're going to take the spotlight. And I realize it's tactical. So is seeing the enemy Wizard grant the enemy Rogue Haste, then responding in kind by tossing out some barriers on the battlefield, to make him have to move twice as far just to get to you. Or stickying him in place. Or greasing the floor so he keeps slipping and falling, and can't get to you before his haste wears off. They're just tactical in different ways, is all. I prefer the latter, but that's not really important. What's important are the things the latter brings to the table, and the fact that Obsidian wants those things on the table. The latter grants things more active significance, and allows for more emergent combat tactics. I won't say that's objectively better, but I think it's not something we see in a lot of games, and I'm excited to experience that and play with it in PoE.

I have a feeling his use of the word "content" is very general. As in, nothing's specifically missing. For example, it doesn't seem like polished spell animations/effects are considered additional content, but rather, "spell effects/animations" are considered a whole piece of content, with their quality/finalization being separate.

Yeah, that was a bad example... I guess I'm just talking about those weapons that are SO full of unique flavor, they're almost not even in the realm of weapons anymore. Like "This sword belonged to a legendary Bard, so it's actually just a large piece of broken harp frame that's been sharpened on one edge, and is now magical." That sort of thing. Just because you want a legendary weapon doesn't mean you want to swing a broken instrument frame around.

I could be wrong, but, it still seems to me like the whole "what you're giving up in active combat time to spend all that prep time achieving all those effects" aspect is a bit more key here, rather than it just being "that took more than like... a certain amount of time, to pre-buff a lot, and that's a waste of time, therefore BAD!" I mean, I think we can all agree that there's eventually a "too long" there somewhere; being able to stack 50 buffs on each party member, requiring 15 minutes of spell-casting, would be quite blatant overkill. But, if he just had a problem with time-wasting, I think he would've just come up with some kind of buff-macroing or some other streamlining function for pre-buffing. Instead of specifically designing buffs to support and be heavily influenced by active combat factors. *shrug* That's just me, though. As for your list, I actually agree very much with the first one. It's no different from save-anywhere. However, in that particular case, I would argue that you shouldn't really need to, or be able to, prepare beyond a certain amount with passive, duration-based value-changing spells/abilities. The most valid (that I can see) argument deals heavily with extents; your "passive is bad, active is good!" and "Balance!" points are good, but those aren't really the issue. If anyone's claiming that's the issue, then they're missing it a bit. The simplest way that I can put it is, yes, if you took a game and just ripped all the pre-buffing out of it, it would be a lesser game. The comparison of that particular design to the same game just devoid of that particular design is going to come up lacking. However, there's another way of doing it that's in conflict with the more passive way, and it is true that you can't really do both. You said in point 2 that if the buffs are so powerful that they eliminate challenge, make them less powerful. Well, giving them shorter durations and limiting to combat-only IS effectively making them less powerful. Really, they're almost one in the same, too; if all buffs (just for example) now last 7 seconds, then you can't really stack 10 of them, then enter combat, can you? By the time you've stacked the 10th one, the first 6 are gone. So, it's effectively just duration shrinking. Maybe the magic in this world can't be attached directly to living things for long amounts of time? Who knows. It's a perfectly valid way of doing things. Active-versus-passive is an aspect of things, but it is not the whole thing. Otherwise, they'd've just removed buffs entirely. The thing is, with shorter-term, focused buffs being used actively and tactically (timing and positioning, included) in combat, you can actually have more significant potency without it being absurd. Thus offering something that, objectively, I won't say is more interesting, but is interesting in a different way. A way that you can't do it while simultaneously doing it the other way, too. If you have protection from arrows, for example, for 10 minutes, then you HAVE to make it kinda wussy. Like you said, if it's stupidly powerful and just makes you immune and that's that, it's out-of-hand. But, if you have protection from arrows for 10 seconds, hell... it can be 75% damage reduction from arrows, or even full immunity (although I still think in the context of a tactical combat system, having at least some exploitable weakness is ideal -- the easiest example of that is to have such a "full immunity" spell not cover all angles of attack, leaving your back exposed or something). Now, you can utilize more tactics with this than you could with "-5% damage from arrows" or something. It's pretty cool to be able to cast a swirling orb of wind around your Fighter, then have him charge the big heavy melee enemy since he doesn't have to worry about becoming a porcupine for not cautiously prioritizing the archers. OR you can use that on your Wizard, so that he can get that long-cast-time spell off right now before you've dealt with the archers. OR you can save it until you see the enemy boost their archer's firing speed, or bestow flame arrows upon him or something. Boom. That's an isolated comparison. I don't have a problem with a 5-10-minute minor protection from arrows that you can cast before the battle. However, in lieu of that other stuff, now it's just a value that's changed unless it gets dispelled before the battle is over. You just make everyone in your party less worried about arrows, inherently. It's like you just summoned a whole 'nother armor equipment slot and a piece of equipment to go in it, until 5-10 minutes from now. I'm all for planning, but planning does not mean "deal with every possible factor before you go into this." No. It means "Okay, there's gonna be a lot of lava around, and no rails to stop us. Let's put on some heat barriers to make getting knocked about on this battlefield a lot less of a worry." That was feasible preparation. So is the proper formation. Equipping the proper weapons, etc. Choosing the proper stances. Coming up with a plan to set up choke points, and/or keep certain enemies from moving into certain areas or getting behind certain people, etc. You wouldn't want buffs that do all that, would you? "Let's cast a buff that automatically keeps the enemy at least 20 feet away from all of us." No, you wouldn't. Well, that's the type of function we'd like to see made happen by our crafty use of the tools at our disposal. Not "well, back when there was no hurry or threat, we cast some spells to deal with these very factors: those archers' damage, that Wizard's ability to harm us with poison, that Cipher's ability to shatter our minds temporarily. Now we just get to not-deal with those things from the get-to, and all we have to do is interrupt their attempts to dispell them, because pre-buffs!" That's why I made the armor comparison in the pre-buffing thread. When you prepare for a battle in a world without magic, you don't bolster 17 things about yourself. You might decide to go with a shield and sword, instead of a two-handed sword. You might opt for lighter armor. You'd decide how to set up, and what maneuvers to have on-hand in the event of enemy actions you can anticipate. Why, when you simply add magic into the mix, do you need to have oodles more things you get to deal with up-front? "Oh, magic? Make everyone magically shielded, and I want a 10% damage reduction from every element known to man! Throw in some Thornskin! I want that extra 5 damage to all melee combatants! Don't forget to boost everyone's willpower, so they're less likely to be hit by mind-targeting spells!" And really, the AI should already be pre-buffingly prepared, just like you were. So, you spend the whole fight trying to de-buff each other (when only certain characters can de-buff, so you end up with things like AoE debuffs and whatnot). It just becomes commonplace for everyone to walk around with a bunch of advantages attached to them, and the fight becomes "Let's see who can take away the most advantages the quickest." Forget actually producing or gaining advantages.