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curryinahurry

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Everything posted by curryinahurry

  1. That is likely the pathfinding, not AI, but yes, it is pretty hilarious to see one of your characters walk around half the map to attack the enemy. There were a few Raubritter fights where my monk was all the way on the other side of the map trying to go around a wooded area. Bringing back on topic...I wonder how hard it would be to have enemies switch to ranged weapons if they can't get around an obsticle? Not an option for monsters that only have one form of attack, but at least fighting Kith would be a bit better.
  2. OP, If you're going to build this fighter, you might want to consider an Island Aumaua, which gets +1 weapon set. You can thus do 4 and tank or off-tank after you've fired your guns. Also, I would personally do this build around a Soldier focus because of Aquebuses and Greatswords. The pump perception and dump a little con and resolve. Wear light armor, and pick up knockdown or a crit talent and you will have an excellent back line guardian/ off-tank. Add lashes for extra damage.
  3. Great change, and what I think many people who were around during the Backer period thought was going to be implementation of the per rest >>>> per encounter. I am expecting this to possible be the first of several passes at balancing out the per encounter spells. Obsidian might, in a future patch, allow for one favored per level from level 9 (as another poster suggested), or start favored spells at a lower level. Either way, it's a change for the better and returns an important strategic element to gameplay. Next I hope, they start looking at metamagic feats for levels 15+ in WM2
  4. There may be a solution by combiningsome of the suggestions made by Elric Galad, Infinitron and Tigranes. It may look something like this: At level 9 Druids, Priests and Wizards get one per encounter casting of any first level spell, beyond that all other spells (including first level) come out of the per rest numbers. At Level 11 Druids, Priests and Wizards all First level Spells casting becomes fully per encounter. Any Second level spell can be cast be cast once per encounter, any additoinal casts are per rest. At Level 13, Second Level Spells become fully per Encounter, 3rd level spells once per encounter At level 15, Third Level spells fully per encounter. The 3 caster classes can choose a talent for the same ability with 4th level spells at this point. Alternatively, they can choose to cast An empowered version of any 5th level spell that has 150% effectiveness (AOE, Damage, Buff, Duration, etc.) at the cost of all per encounter casting of first level spells. Same up the line. I would put a cap on per encounter spell talents at level 5. This could work and allow Obsidian do implement these alterations with minimal implications to the current set up. The trickiest part is UI related, but it could be that it's as simple as a symbol when the spells of a given level can be cast once per encounter free, then become per rest
  5. This game was deigned with certain specific goals. Some of those goals for Caster classes included casters being more powerful at lower levels, but with a smoother power curve (no quadratic mages). The point behind having stronger low level spells, as I stated before, was to avoid the problems in the IE games with Caster classes being marginal until 5th level when they get more powerful spells and enough casts to have a reasonable impact on combat. That is why Fan of Flames is as strong as it is. It serves a specific design purpose at lower levels (make wizards effective damage dealers) but at a cost of putting them in the front lines (trade-off). It continue to be a solid option throughout the game. Therefore it is well designed. Until of course, you can spam it starting at level 9. The point I made about avoiding Degenerate gameplay is related because spells were also designed to be fairly powerful at lower levels to keep the adventuring day from being stopped by the Casters not having viable spell options after 1 encounter at lower levels as in the IE games. Thus, at lower levels, even if you misuse a spell like fan of flames, you have multiple casts/ other option available to keep you wizard in the mix and not have to rest spam. This gets thrown out the window after level 9 because the spells that were designed to keep caster classes viable/ competitive now allow one to steamroll the last part of the game because resource usage is no longer an issue. Thus my point to it running counter to stated design goals. In fact, I did the entire Russett Wood location including 2 caves a few days back on Hard without resting largely on the strength of Hiravais and Durance's ability (at level 9, became 10 towards end of a particular cave) to cast their level 1 spells per encounter.
  6. Your rationalization is an act of grasping at straws. None of the spells you named are particularly OP, particularly at the levels you gain them. and none you mentioned are broken. The fact that they become OP once you can use them per encounter speaks to the problems with the per encounter use and not the relative power of those spells. Truth is that all RPG systems start getting funky at higher levels because keeping power curves reasonable is very difficult. The per encounter spell system needs to be addressed because it so heavily favors 3 classes at the moment, that Obsidian's only options in the future are to give other classes matching ridiculous powers that will lead to the kinds of nonsense we see at the Epic levels of D&D 3.5, or to reign in the power curve so that the game remains playable and enjoyable into higher levels. Wrong. More resource efficient =/= more powerful or broken. Having a relatively more auspicious outcome per cast = more powerful or broken. The spells listed (and others) are extremely powerful and break (hence the term "broken") the game's challenge, even on PotD. They would still be extremely powerful even if they were per rest; there would be nothing stopping you from going back to town to gather more camping supplies in between relatively trivial encounters - this option and scenario does not alter the present potency of the spells I listed, seeing as you would have the same amount of spells for every battle. All the per encounter to per rest change would do is force players to go through more loading screens to gather more supplies if they were tactically inept (which is a huge portion of the player base), but it would not alter the spells being extremely overpowered. You are most likely just using the aforementioned spells incorrectly. Have you beat the game on PotD before without using Barbarian's pre-patch One Man Standing or are you the one grasping at straws? The design of the game was to prevent the type of 'degenerate' scenarios you describe in your response. Preventing the type of playstyle you mention was an explicit point of Josh Sawyer's original strategy in making lower level spells more potent. You have, by accident, summed up the entire problem with the per encounter spell solution; it runs counter to the gaming design goals that the lead designer outlined in his layout of the gameplay and resource usage system...thank you very much.
  7. @ FlintlockJazz I'm glad that you and others are happy...there are many, including myself, who think it's a fairly awful design decision that needs to be addressed. So far, nothing you or anyone else has stated makes that decision seem as anything other than a fairly arbitrary, broad brush solution to a problem that likely needed a finer, directed tuning, and works against the design principles espoused by the games lead designer. The point behind my comment about the fighter thread is that what is mostly being asked for there is an expansion of fighter capabilities in a very modest manner, design changes that are relatively nuanced and tame compared to the spell spamming of Wizards once they get to higher levels, yet both are 2 sides of an overall balance problem many see at the higher levels of gameplay. What's laughable is the white knighting being done by the same group of posters on both threads to keep design as is. Hard to reconcile in my mind.
  8. @Pi2repsion: From the, "Is Wizard Still Garbage" Thread "In 2.0 I am now playing a wizard on POTD, and while it is certainly a greater challenge, it is hard to shake the feeling that the wizard trivializes most of the content, and that the time when I ran two wizards (main + Aloth) until I picked up the Devil of Caroc was equivalent to bumping down the difficulty level one notch to hard." Sorry if I don't understand, but it sure seems that you're saying here that wizards effectively break the game and then have come here to say that low level spells per encounter are merely for convenience. Does that mean that without the option of spamming per encounter spells wizards would still be OP? I think you should try to play POTD with that constraint and report back. @ FlintlockJazz, No one in this thread, including myself, is saying completely get rid of the per encounter spells. Some people, including myself, just want to either tone down the number or have some sort of trade-off that isn't just a giveaway to the 3 classes that benefit from it. Whether that be fewer castings, slower accumulation, or talents. None of these things is particularly punitive, it's just that people who like to play casters always scream the loudest when you want to touch their shinies. Go look at the requests in the, 'role of the fighter' thread. It's laughable by comparison.
  9. Your rationalization is an act of grasping at straws. None of the spells you named are particularly OP, particularly at the levels you gain them. and none you mentioned are broken. The fact that they become OP once you can use them per encounter speaks to the problems with the per encounter use and not the relative power of those spells. Truth is that all RPG systems start getting funky at higher levels because keeping power curves reasonable is very difficult. The per encounter spell system needs to be addressed because it so heavily favors 3 classes at the moment, that Obsidian's only options in the future are to give other classes matching ridiculous powers that will lead to the kinds of nonsense we see at the Epic levels of D&D 3.5, or to reign in the power curve so that the game remains playable and enjoyable into higher levels.
  10. @ Tigranes Actually you may be on to something with the idea of casting talents. People have also been asking for metamagic feats and this may be a nice way to combine both discussions. maybe the talent would be something like, 'per encounter use of x level spells in exchange for permanent loss of 1 spell slot 4 levels higher'. That way your at least create a trade-off for those who want spell spamming. Likewise, you could allow an ability that would allow casters to cast empowered versions of spells (say 25%) in exchange for using all per encounter uses of a spell 3 levels lower. So you could cast 1 Concussive missile Doing 20-33 (base 15-25) per, at the cost of your 4 level one per encounter spells. That would be ok. Either way, Obsidian is going to have to re-think higher level gameplay because it's not great right now and they have fallen into al ot of the problems they wanted to avoid whens tarting this project
  11. Your responses don't really address the problems I stated do they? So Let me try again. Simpler this time My first point is that lower level spells aren't particularly weak in this game as they are dependent on caster ability and not arbitrary difficulty ceilings. In fact, I believe you gush about spamming fireballs and Kalakoth's Minor Blights in the other Wizard thread...sounds a bit like you are bring dishonest about power and efficacy of low level spells in this thread, yes? With regards to my second point, and to a degree my final point; I understand your comment about convenience and spell spamming as a solution as a way of dealing with lower level mobs, the problem that I was pointing out is that when you have a nearly bottomless resource in spells, the concept of what is a level appropriate of difficult encounter get's largely thrown out the window. Thus the inversion I brought up that tactics becomes subservient to convenience as the only encounters that become classifiable as difficult are the ones that can't be won by spamming low level spells. Also, you pretty much missed the point on my conclusion as well. The point was not the first sentence, which was purely an example of how per encounter and per rest spells are interlinked. You stated earlier that, "changing whether spells are per rest or per encounter makes no difference in practice,"as they are a function of convenience and not power ( a statement that you seem to not really believe based on your posts in the other wizard thread, as I pointed out). So my comment was merely that once you are dealing with a nearly bottomless resource (by level 13, when you get 3rd level spells, you may able to cast an additional 14 spells per encounter, multiplied by a hypothetical 10 encounter day, you are looking at and additional 140 spell casts per casting class), the encounters considered trivial shift massively because strategic thinking becomes largely an afterthought. BTW, I'm pretty sure you understand all of this, you just don't want to give up your Shinies, and I respect that, but the reason this thread exists is because many understand just how broken this feature is, and the anecdotal evidence on these forums (much provided by you in the other Wizard thread) is pretty clear.
  12. If, at level 15, you are going to be defeating what passes at that time for challenging encounters using primarily level 1-4 spells with little use of level 5-8 spells that are then available, then there is a significant problem and it isn't that people can cast level 4 spells per encounter, but that the difficulty level and challenge is seriously screwed up such that the challenges can be beaten using low-level spells. And if you aren't, but it does allow you to blaze through easy encounters without using your many high-level spells, what's the problem? Spells per encounter have nothing to do with power and everything to do with convenience in Pillars of Eternity, as you are never in a situation where husbanding per-rest resources is forced upon you rather than being a choice once you have exited the starter dungeon and have gained access to the overworld map. Rather, the use of camping supplies is weighed against the challenge of encounters; The more challenging encounters are for you, the more you will need to rest to replenish resources, but if the encounters aren't all that challenging and don't drain the health of your party or the high level spells of your casters significantly, then you can just keep going and going without using the per-rest abilities, whether they be spells for casters or per rest abilities for other classes. Your wizards, druids, priests, ciphers, warriors, rogues, etc. will plow through the easy encounters using just their per-encounter abilities. If you think spellcasters are too powerful - and granted, they are very powerful at higher levels - reducing the number of spells they can cast or the power of spells would be the way to go; changing whether spells are per rest or per encounter makes no difference in practice. You're analysis is off. First, with regards to spell level and power; there is no DC (Difficulty Class) or saving throws in PoE, only resistance in the form of defense, and the system is designed around hitting (including grazes which impart effects). So your caster will usually hit, and the effectiveness will remain strong at any level because it is based on the casters' ability and not inherent spell power level. Thus, with all the buffs, etc. one can make even first level spells quite powerful. That was the intention of the system from the beginning, and Obsidian has done a great job pulling this part off. Which makes the spamming of x level spells even more problematic. Second, your point about convenience is poorly reasoned. Camping supplies are at the service of Strategic planning. Spells per encounter all but throws strategy out that window because it provides a nearly bottomless resource and almost no opportunity cost. Also, the convenience to spell-casting works against tactics because an approach of, " Big CC and whittle down the mobs with lower level spells and then let the Martial classes wade in to mop up the leftovers," becomes a dominant, brain-dead approach. Thus we have an inversion, tactics and strategy come to serve convenience...lazy design. Finally, your conclusion that spell number of casting is more important than per rest/ per encounter is a false dichotomy. The two are interlinked. If one cast 10 spells per level per rest, then per encounter becomes irrelevant. Same as if one can cast 4 spells of a given level per encounter. If the limiter is health, and your tank can slog through 10 discrete encounters in a day, that is a potential 40 castings of a given spell level...that is essentially limitless casting.
  13. The more I think about Infinitron's suggestion of, "per encounter Vancian", the more I like it. I'm still concerned about the UI problem and also if it's still too wide a net...not sure.
  14. ^ Not a bad idea actually. I just hit level 10 on my first playthrough and things are getting fairly silly gameplay-wise. They have a lot of re-balancing of abilities and classes to do and also get a better handle on gameplay.
  15. Yeah, that's what I mean...put an 'E' next to all the 1sr level spells, and you'll confuse the crap out of everyone.
  16. It was a really lazy design decision by Obsidian. The problem with making Spell Levels per encounter at a certain point is that; a) they make per encounter abilities rather pointless which is counter to original design goals, and b) it ruins strategic gameplay by making managing resources far less significant as low level spells in POE are still very effective at higher levels. This was something Obsidian mentioned from the early days of class development, I always assumed that the idea of spells becoming per encounter would work more like this; At level 9, Wizards, priests and Druids can each choose 1 spell to make per encounter, they would then get this spell listed in their per encounter abilities (at 2 or 3 per encounter?). Wizards would have that particular spell removed from their grimoires and be allowed to replace the open slot with another spell. At level 10, these classes would get another 1st level spell use in the same manner. At level 11, we start the same with 2nd level spells. At 13, 3rd level, and so on. That seems a much more rational then what Obsidian has done thus far. Quite honestly, I am spending all of my time in battles having my casters spam spells and it leaves little time for tactics with other classes without constant pausing. This is much worse than the IE problems, because in those games, the martial classes had almost no micro.
  17. They're usable, sure, but it's safe to say that they aren't performing as well as other frontliners. I've written this about a half dozen times, but it's not even that fighters are lagging behind other frontliners, it's that fighters aren't really doing what they conceived to be doing; playing the role of lockdown defender as a take on the D&D 4 class they are modeled after. A lot of this comes from the fact that AI is now working closer to the way Obsidian originally imagined, but Disengagement was nerfed into being fairly trivial. If they put some teeth back into disengagement attacks, fighters become a much more viable option. Also, on a separate note about balance, anyone who is playing a higher level party right now and doesn't think that casters and martial classes are now completely out of balance probably doesn't care about anything but spell casting. It's a bit of a mess right now, and needs to be addressed You can grant spellcasting to fighters through lore and then you got tough as nail casters. While an interesting point, that I and others are very well aware of, it seems to completely miss the point of my post...and this thread
  18. ^ I see what you mean, but at a I think the classes play different enough that there can be abilities like this, especially as the fighter ability is tied to engagement and can be bracketed that way(cleave applies only to enemies engaged by fighter, not aoe). Truth is, it's very hard to have the 5 martial classes play all that distinctly from one another, and Obsidian has done a decent job of drawing lines even if there is a bit of fuzziness between certain classes.
  19. Also,I've been wondering why fighters, especially with the focus on engagement, don't have an ability like Cleave or Great Cleave. Even if there was only one such feat (like great cleave) available at a higher level, it would make the engagement options for a fighter much more appealing.
  20. ^ Cool, thanks anyway! Hopefully these mods will bring some attention to the issue and Obsidian can look at the problem and come up with an official solution soon.
  21. They're usable, sure, but it's safe to say that they aren't performing as well as other frontliners. I've written this about a half dozen times, but it's not even that fighters are lagging behind other frontliners, it's that fighters aren't really doing what they conceived to be doing; playing the role of lockdown defender as a take on the D&D 4 class they are modeled after. A lot of this comes from the fact that AI is now working closer to the way Obsidian originally imagined, but Disengagement was nerfed into being fairly trivial. If they put some teeth back into disengagement attacks, fighters become a much more viable option. Also, on a separate note about balance, anyone who is playing a higher level party right now and doesn't think that casters and martial classes are now completely out of balance probably doesn't care about anything but spell casting. It's a bit of a mess right now, and needs to be addressed
  22. Oh sorry, my poor typing and thinking skills. I meant, is there a way to add a class bonus of 15% additional damage on disengagement attacks to the class and 15% more (for a total of 30%) with Wary Defender. This was a part of the discussion in the Role of the Fighter thread and it would really help put some teeth back into what the Class was set up to do.
  23. That's a nice start...not to be pushy, but i was wondering if there was any way to add a bonus to Fghters as a class of 15% and an additional 15% for Wary Defender. That would really get the Fighter class concept back in place to what the changes in Defender/ Wary Defender were to reflect in post 2.0. I would definitely try that mod out.
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