Why does every class have to have magic?

[Darkprince048]

Every single class in this game is a mage. It really cheapens the experience of actuly playing a mage. They did this in Elder Scrolls Online. They have this obsession with making every class based off of magic.

Barbarians leap into the sky covered in fire, basically flying, causing an explosion of flame upon landing. They summon a tornado of spirits to assail their opponents around them. They throw a glowing fricking weapon which explodes into a fireball on contact. Like really? It's a fricken barbarian! Why must we cheapen the experience?

Rogues teleport around in purple smoke, and vanish in a cloud of magical dust. They are rogues! Backyard assassins and criminals. Where did they get a formal education in sorcery?

Fighters get telekinesis and can literally drag their target in close from a distance in a display of orange energy. Like, who thought of these moves?

Totally turned me off to the game. I play these games to feel like I am playing a wizard, but when every Tom, **** and Harry are throwing around spells, it totally ruins the experience. There are enough magic focused classes in the game. You didn't need to turn the historically mundane ones into magical powerhouses too. Another Elder Scrolls Online "Dragonknight".... I am starting to question if it is an issue with the company.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Darkprince048

[Amentep]

I believe the in-cannon explanations for all powers, martial or magical, is that its driven by the power of your soul since all things are driven by how strong your soul is in the game.

[Braven]

I agree, it is heavy on magic and magic-like effects. At least we are not forced into having all our swords constantly on fire or shooting sparks of lightning, even outside of combat, like in the first game.

 

I guess the developers thought it would be boring having a fighter that just auto-attacked or had some kind of hidden passive buffs. Imagine picking a vanilla fighter at the start of the game. Eder joins you and it is all good. Best buddies fighting side by side against wild boars using sword and spear as the gods intended... then Aloth shows up and fries everything left and right with magic powers you could only ever dream of. Now your main character is just a meatshield.... a speedbump between super wizard Aloth and the enemies he is roasting for dinner. One runs past you, but in your clunky realistic armor and lack of magic abilities to move faster than a snail under all that metal means you are helpless to intercept. Don’t worry, Aloth has a magic barrier to send our enemies catapulting backwards 20 meters.

 

If only wizards had all the cool tricks, then why play anything else? Well, you could put major limits on how often a wizard could cast spells... like only so many spells per rest instead of per encounter. But then power gamers would simply rest after every little skirmish and still only play wizards... and then we would have the first pillars of eternity all over again.

 

You could make magic and wizards wimpy to not out do their mundate counterparts, but how realistic is a fireball that hits like a wet noodle? You could make it a tiny little flame dart instead, but that isn’t very visually appealing for a video game or make you feel particularly powerful. Same with a “powerful sword swing” ability that looks pretty much just like a normal sword swing to be realistic.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Braven

[Darkprince048]

I agree, it is heavy on magic and magic-like effects. At least we are not forced into having all our swords constantly on fire or shooting sparks of lightning, even outside of combat, like in the first game.

 

I guess the developers thought it would be boring having a fighter that just auto-attacked or had some kind of hidden passive buffs. Imagine picking a vanilla fighter at the start of the game. Eder joins you and it is all good. Best buddies fighting side by side against wild boars using sword and spear as the gods intended... then Aloth shows up and fries everything left and right with magic powers you could only ever dream of. Now your main character is just a meatshield.... a speedbump between super wizard Aloth and the enemies he is roasting for dinner. One runs past you, but in your clunky armor and lack of magic means you are helpless to stop him. Don’t worry, Aloth has a magic shield to send him catapulting backwards.

 

If only wizards had all the cool tricks, then why play anything else? Well, you could put sever limits on how often the wizard could cast spells... like only so many spells per rest. But then power gamers would simply rest after every skirmish and still only play wizards... and then we would have the first pillars of eternity all over again.

 

I get that, I do, but they are wizards. They are supposed to be able to do things others cannot, that's what makes it......magic. You balance this with reagents and cast times, with poor defense. They are vulnerable up close, during casting. But in every lore in history, magic users are more powerful than non magic users. I would think that would be obvious. And the fighters and rogues can have cool moves like dashes and rolls and power hits, but they don't need to wreathed in fire, flying around the map without wings, and teleporting in purple smoke.

[dunehunter]

I can use OP’s argument against him, it also cheapen the experience of playing a martial class, when I can only auto attacks. Baldur’s Gate 2 is an example your fighter are only be able to attack. It’s very boring to play a fighter there.

Edited June 8, 2018 by dunehunter

[Darkprince048]

Nobody said anything about only auto attacking, but if you can't think of a move set that's unique and doesn't involve magic, you are lacking in imagination and have no business making games. How about different power attacks and charges that don't involve magical particle effects and surrounding yourself in flame? How about kicks, upper cuts, rolls, dives, shield bashes, etc? How about rogues getting various toys and gadgets, flips, and dodges? Why do we need to substitute all these equally cool moves with magical ones? Because its easy, and because this generation is unable to accept asymmetry. "Why cant my fighter throw fireballs like the wizard??? Wehhhhhhhn! that's not fair! Boring!!"

[Darkprince048]

And my posts are being censored.... 

[Seroster01]

I can use OP’s argument against him, it also cheapen the experience of playing a martial class, when I can only auto attacks. Baldur’s Gate 2 is an example your fighter are only be able to attack. It’s very boring to play a fighter there.

QFT.

 

I get that you like to play a wizard and feel all bad ass & full of arcane might. But I like playing melee classes that do kick-ass things with awesome abilities.

 

Having martial classes being auto-attack bots is terribly, terribly boring. Also, to have more than 1 martial class in a game you essentially HAVE to include the type of abilities you're complaining about.

 

It makes me feel like your post is very selfish. "I want my preferred class archetype to be special and unique! Screw those martial classes & all the people who like them!"

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Why not? This is fantasy, there isn't an intrinsic rule that says only skinny nerds in a dress can use magic while everyone else is stuck with hitting stuff with a sword.

[evilcat]

POE casters generally scale well with Might, so unless you focus on buffs/cc/debuffs better hit the gym, and build some muscles. It Might be useful.

The whole system is cool, since even when you play swordfighter you can still click some buttons for Dragon Furry Strike. Which is awesome.

I thought that Into The Fray is throwing grapling hook towards enemy with battlecry "Get over here" just sound effect is bugged.

 

There are some issues, like:

Martial classes start with 2 active abillities at tier 1 and you have to pick something, even if you wanted to use something else this time

Some classes have less active abillities overall (like barbarians)

Some abillities are expensive even if effect is okeish

Some classes have "Zeal on Kill" others not, this is not way of communism comrade.

 

and so one.

This is probably more general discussion not build and mechanic.

[Abbzug]

This seems like a strange place for this post.

[Seroster01]

Another Elder Scrolls Online "Dragonknight".... I am starting to question if it is an issue with the company.

This line perplexes me. ESO (Zenimax/bethesda) and POE (Obsidian) have no ties to each other, except Obsidian once made a Fallout game for Bethesda. So not sure what Dragonknights would have to do with this game?

 

If you weren't saying the 2 were made by the same company, where did the second line come from and what does it have to do with anything?

[Abbzug]

 

Another Elder Scrolls Online "Dragonknight".... I am starting to question if it is an issue with the company.

This line perplexes me. ESO (Zenimax/bethesda) and POE (Obsidian) have no ties to each other, except Obsidian once made a Fallout game for Bethesda. So not sure what Dragonknights would have to do with this game?

 

If you weren't saying the 2 were made by the same company, where did the second line come from and what does it have to do with anything?

 

 

 

Dragonknight is ostensibly a martial class but it uses spells for its abilities, that's all he was getting at. It's like a fighter that's been jedified or merlinized. He wasn't comparing the two companies.

[Amentep]

And my posts are being censored....

 

New posters have to be moderator approve through 5 posts. It's an anti-spam bot measure. All your posts in this thread are now approved.

[Guest]

I believe the in-cannon explanations for all powers, martial or magical, is that its driven by the power of your soul since all things are driven by how strong your soul is in the game.

This is correct and was the case in the first game as well. There were some complaints that there wasn’t enough emphasis on how souls fueled powers

[QuiteGoneJin]

I agree, it is heavy on magic and magic-like effects. At least we are not forced into having all our swords constantly on fire or shooting sparks of lightning, even outside of combat, like in the first game.

 

I guess the developers thought it would be boring having a fighter that just auto-attacked or had some kind of hidden passive buffs. Imagine picking a vanilla fighter at the start of the game. Eder joins you and it is all good. Best buddies fighting side by side against wild boars using sword and spear as the gods intended... then Aloth shows up and fries everything left and right with magic powers you could only ever dream of. Now your main character is just a meatshield.... a speedbump between super wizard Aloth and the enemies he is roasting for dinner. One runs past you, but in your clunky realistic armor and lack of magic abilities to move faster than a snail under all that metal means you are helpless to intercept. Don’t worry, Aloth has a magic barrier to send our enemies catapulting backwards 20 meters.

 

If only wizards had all the cool tricks, then why play anything else? Well, you could put major limits on how often a wizard could cast spells... like only so many spells per rest instead of per encounter. But then power gamers would simply rest after every little skirmish and still only play wizards... and then we would have the first pillars of eternity all over again.

 

You could make magic and wizards wimpy to not out do their mundate counterparts, but how realistic is a fireball that hits like a wet noodle? You could make it a tiny little flame dart instead, but that isn’t very visually appealing for a video game or make you feel particularly powerful. Same with a “powerful sword swing” ability that looks pretty much just like a normal sword swing to be realistic.

In combat Aloth always felt like the MC. 

[mostundesired]

I kind of understand what OP is getting at. A lot of base abilities for martial classes could've been made more mundane: Rogue's escape could give you Swift instead of teleporting, Ranger's tactical role could've been an actual rolling animation, both could temporarily remove collision boxes so you don't get stuck on other characters, Into the Fray could have a shorter range and still be useful but that might be pushing it. The upgrades tend to add magical effects for seemingly no reason; Barbarian and Monk in general have a lot of the-same-but-more-magical upgrades, although you could make an argument that Monk as a "spiritual" class is inherently magical. The argument that a magical element is necessary to make these abilities/classes worthwhile compared to spells/casters assumes magic is gamebreakingly powerful, and that martial abilities don't get much more interesting that variations of "I hit the thing."

 

That said, the lore already explains that every class is a little bit magical because of soul shenanigans, they all match the flavor of the class, and they feel more like abstractions than like spells most of the time, so to me it's really a non-issue.

 

Side note, I loathe the assumption that magic inherently makes a character strictly more powerful, rather than more flexible. IMO, the best applications of magic are usually clever and creative, rather than cataclysmic and all-powerful.

[Seroster01]

Nobody said anything about only auto attacking, but if you can't think of a move set that's unique and doesn't involve magic, you are lacking in imagination and have no business making games. How about different power attacks and charges that don't involve magical particle effects and surrounding yourself in flame? How about kicks, upper cuts, rolls, dives, shield bashes, etc? How about rogues getting various toys and gadgets, flips, and dodges? Why do we need to substitute all these equally cool moves with magical ones? Because its easy, and because this generation is unable to accept asymmetry. "Why cant my fighter throw fireballs like the wizard??? Wehhhhhhhn! that's not fair! Boring!!"

 

So I should be denied my enjoyment of Paladin-style characters with flaming weapons to smite their enemies?  Or of Barbarians that do super-human feats (Shouting to damage enemies, leaping into combat) through strength & willpower rather than waggling their fingers?  Should fighters not get charge because moving instantly through all targets, while stunning them, to attack my targeted enemy behind all the bodies in the way is too magic-ey for your tastes of what martial classes should be capable of?  Cause the Charge presented in-game is too super-human to be non-magical.  Casters already have many more combat options & useful effects than most martial casters, especially in AOE terms.  Why would you take away the options martial classes do have?  You're basically advocating for other people's enjoyment of the game to be limited to promote your own. 

 

That sounds just like the sentiment you expressed in the end of your post to me.  "Why do other people get abilities with fancy particle effects when only Spellcasters should be able to???  Wehhhhhhh, that's not fair!  I want to be special!" 

 

It goes both ways.

[Seroster01]

 

 

Another Elder Scrolls Online "Dragonknight".... I am starting to question if it is an issue with the company.

This line perplexes me. ESO (Zenimax/bethesda) and POE (Obsidian) have no ties to each other, except Obsidian once made a Fallout game for Bethesda. So not sure what Dragonknights would have to do with this game?

 

If you weren't saying the 2 were made by the same company, where did the second line come from and what does it have to do with anything?

 

 

 

Dragonknight is ostensibly a martial class but it uses spells for its abilities, that's all he was getting at. It's like a fighter that's been jedified or merlinized. He wasn't comparing the two companies.

 

 

 

Then why would he say "I'm starting to wonder if it's an issue with the company?"  If he's not saying they're the same company, why would he wonder if it's an "issue with the company"?He didn't compare it to another Obsidian game, and the only other Obsidian game I'm aware of that wasn't based on a pre-existing universe or the POE setting is Tyranny.  Tyranny is basically built on the concept that everyone is functionally a mage (or at least anyone who's going to fight) and the more martial types use magic to buff themselves, if nothing else.

 

It's a statement that doesn't make a lot of sense without further explanation, thus why I asked for clarification.

[Shadenuat]

You're few years too late, when PoE1 was kickstarted people did point out how anime/mmo "everything is soulpower" was. Well I did anyway.

[Darkprince048]

 

Nobody said anything about only auto attacking, but if you can't think of a move set that's unique and doesn't involve magic, you are lacking in imagination and have no business making games. How about different power attacks and charges that don't involve magical particle effects and surrounding yourself in flame? How about kicks, upper cuts, rolls, dives, shield bashes, etc? How about rogues getting various toys and gadgets, flips, and dodges? Why do we need to substitute all these equally cool moves with magical ones? Because its easy, and because this generation is unable to accept asymmetry. "Why cant my fighter throw fireballs like the wizard??? Wehhhhhhhn! that's not fair! Boring!!"

 

So I should be denied my enjoyment of Paladin-style characters with flaming weapons to smite their enemies?  Or of Barbarians that do super-human feats (Shouting to damage enemies, leaping into combat) through strength & willpower rather than waggling their fingers?  Should fighters not get charge because moving instantly through all targets, while stunning them, to attack my targeted enemy behind all the bodies in the way is too magic-ey for your tastes of what martial classes should be capable of?  Cause the Charge presented in-game is too super-human to be non-magical.  Casters already have many more combat options & useful effects than most martial casters, especially in AOE terms.  Why would you take away the options martial classes do have?  You're basically advocating for other people's enjoyment of the game to be limited to promote your own. 

 

That sounds just like the sentiment you expressed in the end of your post to me.  "Why do other people get abilities with fancy particle effects when only Spellcasters should be able to???  Wehhhhhhh, that's not fair!  I want to be special!" 

 

It goes both ways.

 

A paladin should have some magical effects because the nature of the class. But there is an overwhelming amount of magical classes in the game. In fact, the vast majority are magical hybrids of some type. On top of being able to multi class. Why is it needed to make the only 4 mundane classes magical? Not to mention, it breaks the concept of a fighter or barbarian to be leaping around in balls of fire, and using telekinesis. What separates them from a wizard then?

[Boeroer]

You are stuck in the definition of classes of D&D and similar games. If you like their approaches better that's ok. But this game defines classes and what they can do differently than other RPG games. Their "magic" stems from the power of their souls. Everything supernatural is based on essence (or soul power) in PoE. That explains why they all have some mumbo jumbo going on. This may be to ones liking or not - but arguing with "nature of the class" or "history" is leading you nowhere. Your point is that you don't like it and would prefer a more conservative approach - and that's fair. But don't use your likings as basis for judgement. And don't insult the designers just because they created something that you don't like. I personally could also do with a lot less particle effects and boomboom - but I accept that the classes in PoE can do amazing things due to the power of their souls. That's in line with the world's lore. If I couldn't accept that I wouldn't play the game.

Edited June 9, 2018 by Boeroer

[Darkprince048]

Well yeah I already uninstalled, unfortunately there is a massive shortage of good and up to date fantasy setting rpgs these days, so it is upsetting.

[Guest]

Ok bye

[Boeroer]

Well yeah I already uninstalled, unfortunately there is a massive shortage of good and up to date fantasy setting rpgs these days, so it is upsetting.

"There's a massive shortage of fantasy setting RPGs that are to my liking these days" would be correct. What's good and up to date is not defined by your likings.