Why does every class have to have magic?

[Boeroer]

Cooldowns just lead to spamming abilities without thinking. Managing resources gives more depth.

 

Just compare Tyranny's combat with PoE's or Deadfire's. Which one feels less like console-like button-smashing?

[Takkik]

I'd love it if every class had a way to regenerate resources. What you described sounds good, but it's probably too much work to implement

Yeah, too late for po2, perhaps for po3 or another rpg.

 

Poe2 don't have skill cooldowns, but you have a global cooldown : recovery. It's a way to promote player choice and prevent spamming. The recovery can influence player choice more than a skill only cooldown.

 

Another tool for designer : return of per encounter abilities that don't take any of your resources. Since they don't take resources they don't compete with your other abilities but since you have a limited number of use you must choose when to use them in a fight. Right now pretty much only items (and a few class passives) work like that, and lot of items abilities are as per rest. Druid shapeshift work like that and Priest holy radiance. Monk is close too with it's dual resource pools.

 

My main problem with poe2 system right now it's how for most classes there is a huge resource competition between abilities, that make unlocking new abilities not always desirable. Dual resources (generation, per encounter, dual fixed pool) allow designer to give different weight to abilities and more choices to player. It's my main grip with wizard how arcane assault, grimoire slam or arcane veil are spells now and compete with other spells instead of per encounter abilities (or using another resource similar to discipline).

[Manveru123]

Cooldowns just lead to spamming abilities without thinking. Managing resources gives more depth.

 

Just compare Tyranny's combat with PoE's or Deadfire's. Which one feels less like console-like button-smashing?

That just sounds like you were using your spells and abilities randomly when playing Tyranny. I'm guessing what you mean is, if you blow all of your cooldowns at the start, you then just use whatever comes off cooldown first, that counts as spamming? Well in Deadfire, I don't really see any point in saving spells or abilities during combat. I just blow everything as soon as possible to end the fight quickly. If I don't manage to do that, it drags on, and I end up at a point where I have little to do because I'm out of resources. I really don't see the reason to manage resources at all, I mean what is the mechanical point of waiting eg. 5 seconds between each FoD instead of just spamming them? So it pretty much ends up being the same; difference is, in Tyranny you never really had a situation where you have nothing to cast.

 

I don't think either combat feels like button-smashing. In my case, both games it was the same: cast self buffs, then just start throwing the strongest spells. Difference was, in Deadfire I had to resort to auto attacking at some points because of that, while in Tyranny I never (or rarely) did. One thing I can give to Deadfire is that Tyranny was WAYYY more repetitive because every class had access to the same basic spells.

 

In my opinion the biggest selling point of Deadfire's combat are AI scripts. Even if I want to micro everything, being able to cast self buffs on auto is a huge, huge improvement and I'm pretty damn sure that having scripts would also make my Tyranny experience better.

[Lord_Mord]

I agree that the cooldown mechanic can be overused easely. But it is a nice mechanic that can feel good and make sense. What I would do is using cooldowns for things like sword moves and kicks but never for magic or special abilites and the cooldowns would not be per ability, but per action. So the fighter would have a lot of cooldowns, other classes not so much.

[Boeroer]

For me it's just a bad mechanic. I never saw a good implementation of cooldown-on-ability and the fundamental idea also seems to be flawed. Ability A gets used and has a 12 sec cooldown till you can use it again - but you don't face any pause if you just use ability B that has a 6 second cooldown - then C with 6 and rinse and repeat. Horrible. This leads to the opposite situation that we have in Deadfire (and that I also don't like). In Deadfire abilities compete for Discipline/Guile/Bond etc. So you don't want to pick too many of them. In Tyranny you wanted to pick as many actives as possible to circumvent cooldown.

 

Both variants aren't great but I prefer the first. If you then find a way to refresh resources (Wounds, Focus, Flesh Communion, Brilliant etc.) things get interesting.

 

X per encounter like in PoE was also ok. Active abilities didn't compete for resource but also couldn't be spammed endlessly just by pickig enough to prevent cooldown pause.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Boeroer

[Abel]

For me it's just a bad mechanic. I never saw a good implementation of cooldown-on-ability and the fundamental idea also seems to be flawed. Ability A gets used and has a 12 sec cooldown till you can use it again - but you don't face any pause if you just use ability B that has a 6 second cooldown - then C with 6 and rinse and repeat. Horrible. This leads to the opposite situation that we have in Deadfire (and that I also don't like). In Deadfire abilities compete for Discipline/Guile/Bond etc. So you don't want to pick too many of them. In Tyranny you wanted to pick as many actives as possible to circumvent cooldown.

 

Both variants aren't great but I prefer the first. If you then find a way to refresh resources (Wounds, Focus, Flesh Communion, Brilliant etc.) things get interesting.

 

Well, it's a mechanical point of view. I will trust you about this. You're way better than me with things like that.

 

The best for me would be a system that makes combat feel natural. Like in not "in ya face just 'coz" and like in "smooth". I have no idea how to achieve this. I actually think Skyrim made a good attempt. There was "Silver", too in the 90's. This game basically allowed your character to move and fight according to the movements of your mouse. Well, it was not really a RPG ^^.

 

Even though i dislike cooldowns for the same reasons as you, i think DA:O felt more natural regarding warrior combat's style, since abilities were more about apt swordsmanship than "Boom boom moves". That's why i thought stacking the cooldowns instead of having a separate one for each ability could be a good starting idea. But i'm no game designer, i trust you will immediately see problems or possibilities i won't be able to see unless i test the whole thing myself (i'm not trolling you. I really believe this). Regarding this. You're seeing the matter from a mechanical perspective it seems, while i see it more from an immersive perspective. But still, looks like even so, we can agree on some things, which i think is great.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Abel

[Manveru123]

For me it's just a bad mechanic. I never saw a good implementation of cooldown-on-ability and the fundamental idea also seems to be flawed. Ability A gets used and has a 12 sec cooldown till you can use it again - but you don't face any pause if you just use ability B that has a 6 second cooldown - then C with 6 and rinse and repeat. Horrible. This leads to the opposite situation that we have in Deadfire (and that I also don't like). In Deadfire abilities compete for Discipline/Guile/Bond etc. So you don't want to pick too many of them. In Tyranny you wanted to pick as many actives as possible to circumvent cooldown.

 

But that's the point of cooldowns. They improve the pace of the fight, because you have something to do all the time. I feel like having more abilities to use in combat adds depth too, because you build your character to be very universal, while in Deadfire you pretty much have to be a caster to achieve that effect.

 

To each his own I guess. I've spent years playing MMORPG games so for me "cooldowns" feel natural.

[Loren Tyr]

I agree that a cooldown system that just results in a scheduled sequence of abilities, as Boeroer describes, would not be desirable; I don't think that is an inevitable conclusion for all cooldown and cooldown-like systems though. It can be a useful tool.

 

Ultimately what is needed (as I see it anyway), is a situation where at (pretty much) any given time the player has an actual decision to make on what to do next. Which firstly I think requires there to be more and more varied abilities available to a character (so as to improve the range of options in general), but also that they have more pronounced downsides to them. Stuff like this, as well as cooldowns that apply to a class of abilities rather than individually, would help remove the "using your top ability the moment its cooldown ends" kind of problem (by things not being as clearly 'the top ability', and multiple abilities becoming available again simultaneously).

 

Having said that, I think the better alternative is still a switch from rather binary systems like (finite) per-encounter resources and cooldowns to a more gradual approach, as have been variously suggested already: resources that replenish over time (akin to chanter phrases, though it'd help to scale them to higher counts to give more flexibility); resources that accumulate due to action (like focus and wounds); negative 'resources' that accumulate with specific ability use, which accrue negative effects and dissipate over time (and are unlimited, making considerations of how often certain types of abilities are used an actual decision, and giving more value to low-penalty abilities like auto-attack variations); having accumulating penalties in a more specific sense from overusing the same abilities quickly (ie. you -can- spam magic missiles, but there are natural incentives not to); and in general, having more downsides to everything in addition to their benefits, such that again there is more to weigh in using them than "has it cooled down yet" / "do I have the resources for it"?

 

That'd be my general assessment anyway .

[Guest 4ward]

i’d like it if Obsidian would return to gameplay that doesn’t completely evolve around using abilities. In the old ie games i would search through my inventory like scroll cases or potions or think of moving my units around and using terrain. The rts gameplay to me worked wonderfully with the per-rest system, it encouraged me to find different ways of handling encounters. I think it’s a pity that Obsidian invested a great amount of effort in creating loads of potions and other consumables and also terrain design but because of my abilities fully replenishing automatically after battles i’m not encouraged to use the a.m. Now the modern games are kind of ‘load the player with abilities and load the opposition with numbers’. That, together with countering not being as much of a factor as in BG2 makes deadfire combat ok in a Dragon Age-kind of way which is good if you like DA combat, i definitely prefer BG2 though. Isometric party-rpg has more potential than providing ability-centered gameplay. Re. penalties, i’m not a fan of them since i’m not that masochistic. Also if an ability shall be a tactical consideration it needs to be available for me immediately - otherwise it’s not worth using and IMO hints at gameplay that doesn’t involve tactics during combat.

[Takkik]

 

For me it's just a bad mechanic. I never saw a good implementation of cooldown-on-ability and the fundamental idea also seems to be flawed. Ability A gets used and has a 12 sec cooldown till you can use it again - but you don't face any pause if you just use ability B that has a 6 second cooldown - then C with 6 and rinse and repeat. Horrible. This leads to the opposite situation that we have in Deadfire (and that I also don't like). In Deadfire abilities compete for Discipline/Guile/Bond etc. So you don't want to pick too many of them. In Tyranny you wanted to pick as many actives as possible to circumvent cooldown.

 

But that's the point of cooldowns. They improve the pace of the fight, because you have something to do all the time. I feel like having more abilities to use in combat adds depth too, because you build your character to be very universal, while in Deadfire you pretty much have to be a caster to achieve that effect.

 

To each his own I guess. I've spent years playing MMORPG games so for me "cooldowns" feel natural.

 

 

Cooldown don't really improve pace of fighting. And MMO (oldschool ones like Wow & rift) have a different economy because skills have cooldown (to prevent spaming) but they cost resources too (mana, endurance...). So there is resource management and cooldowns are here to prevent skill spamming. In Deadfire that could be used to prevent you from using same skill over & over and push you to take more abilities. But in MMo you have resource regeneration too.

 

Another difference of MMO, you have 15-20+ abilities often, so since you're limited by a resource pool it's less about spamming sames skills over & over than find the best selection of skills to use for each encounter.

 

I played vanilla guild wars 2, the cooldown system wasn't bad, but the game is more action oriented and you control only one character (third person). You have a selection of 10-15 skills. The first 5 weapons skills have short cooldown and are spammable. It's about findind the right rotation, doing combos or use the right counter at the right timing (shield block, interrupt...). Your utility skills have longer cooldown and are situationnal. There are variations depending of weapons, classes etc... some classes need to build resources, combos... But the main difference with Tyranny is that you have more skills (you can weapon switch and some classes have extra skills) so getting one or more skill don't make a huge difference like in Tyranny, and there is a distinction between skills with the length of cooldown.

 

In conclusion?

- The system need a resource pool that you can regenerate (through time, use of resource generator abilities...)

- skills need cooldown to prevent spamming the same skill over & over. Need a distinction between short CD and skills with longer cooldown.

- More variations on how classes manage their resources (like in MMO, Diablo 3). Chanter, Cipher & monk are the most interesting/differents in deadfire (I miss so much the combo rogue from old MMO).

- You need to have enough abilities at your disposition to force you to make choice (more specialised abilities?). In deadfire you can have build with 2-3 skills, even without cooldown you just spam same skills over & over.

[Abel]

 

 

i’d like it if Obsidian would return to gameplay that doesn’t completely evolve around using abilities. In the old ie games i would search through my inventory like scroll cases or potions or think of moving my units around and using terrain. The rts gameplay to me worked wonderfully with the per-rest system, it encouraged me to find different ways of handling encounters. I think it’s a pity that Obsidian invested a great amount of effort in creating loads of potions and other consumables and also terrain design but because of my abilities fully replenishing automatically after battles i’m not encouraged to use the a.m. Now the modern games are kind of ‘load the player with abilities and load the opposition with numbers’. That, together with countering not being as much of a factor as in BG2 makes deadfire combat ok in a Dragon Age-kind of way which is good if you like DA combat, i definitely prefer BG2 though. Isometric party-rpg has more potential than providing ability-centered gameplay.

 

Yeah, for me too, the old IE way is still the best possible ^^. I never enjoyed combat in any RPG as much as i did in BG1 and BG2. Probably because i never abused mechanics when possible. If i had the courage to find a way to try to install anew BG Trilogy with some other mods without destroying the install, i would rather play BGT once more, rather than Pillars. And when it came to resources management, priests were the best. I miss the old health system and priests healing outside combat so much, it hurts .

Edited June 22, 2018 by Abel

[Manveru123]

Okay so do you remember that in those "old IE games" resting was not limited by anything, and you could rest after each and every fight, effectively making all of your abilities and spells "per encounter"? Now instead of you having to press two buttons, your health and abilities are restored automatically. Sounds good to me

[Abel]

Probably because i never abused mechanics when possible.

 

I guess the answer was already somewhere in there. I never played a BG in per/encounter. Would be plain boring anyway.

Edited June 22, 2018 by Abel

[gloomseeker]

 

i’d like it if Obsidian would return to gameplay that doesn’t completely evolve around using abilities. In the old ie games i would search through my inventory like scroll cases or potions or think of moving my units around and using terrain. The rts gameplay to me worked wonderfully with the per-rest system, it encouraged me to find different ways of handling encounters. I think it’s a pity that Obsidian invested a great amount of effort in creating loads of potions and other consumables and also terrain design but because of my abilities fully replenishing automatically after battles i’m not encouraged to use the a.m. Now the modern games are kind of ‘load the player with abilities and load the opposition with numbers’. That, together with countering not being as much of a factor as in BG2 makes deadfire combat ok in a Dragon Age-kind of way which is good if you like DA combat, i definitely prefer BG2 though. Isometric party-rpg has more potential than providing ability-centered gameplay.

 

Yeah, for me too, the old IE way is still the best possible ^^. I never enjoyed combat in any RPG as much as i did in BG1 and BG2. Probably because i never abused mechanics when possible. If i had the courage to find a way to try to install anew BG Trilogy with some other mods without destroying the install, i would rather play BGT once more, rather than Pillars. And when it came to resources management, priests were the best. I miss the old health system and priests healing outside combat so much, it hurts .

 

 

Give Big World Setup a go.

 

I'm replaying BG myself and compared to regular Trilogy or Tutu (which I used to play BG with) the Big World thingy is incredibly easy to use.

[Abel]

 

 

i’d like it if Obsidian would return to gameplay that doesn’t completely evolve around using abilities. In the old ie games i would search through my inventory like scroll cases or potions or think of moving my units around and using terrain. The rts gameplay to me worked wonderfully with the per-rest system, it encouraged me to find different ways of handling encounters. I think it’s a pity that Obsidian invested a great amount of effort in creating loads of potions and other consumables and also terrain design but because of my abilities fully replenishing automatically after battles i’m not encouraged to use the a.m. Now the modern games are kind of ‘load the player with abilities and load the opposition with numbers’. That, together with countering not being as much of a factor as in BG2 makes deadfire combat ok in a Dragon Age-kind of way which is good if you like DA combat, i definitely prefer BG2 though. Isometric party-rpg has more potential than providing ability-centered gameplay.

 

Yeah, for me too, the old IE way is still the best possible ^^. I never enjoyed combat in any RPG as much as i did in BG1 and BG2. Probably because i never abused mechanics when possible. If i had the courage to find a way to try to install anew BG Trilogy with some other mods without destroying the install, i would rather play BGT once more, rather than Pillars. And when it came to resources management, priests were the best. I miss the old health system and priests healing outside combat so much, it hurts .

 

 

Give Big World Setup a go.

 

I'm replaying BG myself and compared to regular Trilogy or Tutu (which I used to play BG with) the Big World thingy is incredibly easy to use.

 

 

Oh? Is it possible to install mods like Secret of Bonehill or 1Pixel Productions on top of it? I have quite the list of mods i would like to install. But i always ended up with a broken install.

 

Et ce, malgré l'aide que j'ai trouvée sur les forums de la "Couronne de Cuivre" ^^

[Guest 4ward]

Okay so do you remember that in those "old IE games" resting was not limited by anything, and you could rest after each and every fight, effectively making all of your abilities and spells "per encounter"?

no i don't remember that because that was not the case.

 

 

Probably because i never abused mechanics when possible.

 

I guess the answer was already somewhere in there. I never played a BG in per/encounter. Would be plain boring anyway.

 

not just boring but also completely unnecessary. You don't rest after you just fought a group of hobgoblins in BG2.

[Manveru123]

 

Okay so do you remember that in those "old IE games" resting was not limited by anything, and you could rest after each and every fight, effectively making all of your abilities and spells "per encounter"?

no i don't remember that because that was not the case.

 

What do you mean by "that was not the case" exactly? You had a rest button. You click the button, you rest, your health and spells are restored. No fuss. You didn't have to but you could.

[Elerond]

 

 

Okay so do you remember that in those "old IE games" resting was not limited by anything, and you could rest after each and every fight, effectively making all of your abilities and spells "per encounter"?

no i don't remember that because that was not the case.

 

What do you mean by "that was not the case" exactly? You had a rest button. You click the button, you rest, your health and spells are restored. No fuss. You didn't have to but you could.

 

 

There were some areas where resting was disabled and some areas where there was change for random mosters to appear. And there was also couple timed quests which had possibility to fail if you took too long. But most of the time rest button was full heal and get spells back without any consequences button which was there only for roleplay purposes and to give players ability to decide if they want additional difficulty or not.

[Thibax]

Why people is against magic?

 

So we need to add a system for the weapon users like fatigue.

 

So weapon users can't fight all time because they are tired and without energy.

 

They need to rest too.

[gloomseeker]

 

 

 

i’d like it if Obsidian would return to gameplay that doesn’t completely evolve around using abilities. In the old ie games i would search through my inventory like scroll cases or potions or think of moving my units around and using terrain. The rts gameplay to me worked wonderfully with the per-rest system, it encouraged me to find different ways of handling encounters. I think it’s a pity that Obsidian invested a great amount of effort in creating loads of potions and other consumables and also terrain design but because of my abilities fully replenishing automatically after battles i’m not encouraged to use the a.m. Now the modern games are kind of ‘load the player with abilities and load the opposition with numbers’. That, together with countering not being as much of a factor as in BG2 makes deadfire combat ok in a Dragon Age-kind of way which is good if you like DA combat, i definitely prefer BG2 though. Isometric party-rpg has more potential than providing ability-centered gameplay.

 

Yeah, for me too, the old IE way is still the best possible ^^. I never enjoyed combat in any RPG as much as i did in BG1 and BG2. Probably because i never abused mechanics when possible. If i had the courage to find a way to try to install anew BG Trilogy with some other mods without destroying the install, i would rather play BGT once more, rather than Pillars. And when it came to resources management, priests were the best. I miss the old health system and priests healing outside combat so much, it hurts .

 

 

Give Big World Setup a go.

 

I'm replaying BG myself and compared to regular Trilogy or Tutu (which I used to play BG with) the Big World thingy is incredibly easy to use.

 

 

Oh? Is it possible to install mods like Secret of Bonehill or 1Pixel Productions on top of it? I have quite the list of mods i would like to install. But i always ended up with a broken install.

 

Et ce, malgré l'aide que j'ai trouvée sur les forums de la "Couronne de Cuivre" ^^

 

 

You can always try, Big World will list incompatibilities so it's probably your best bet to get a working modded game. Plus it's a pretty convenient tool.

 

Tu devrais essayer!

[Abel]

 

 

 

 

i’d like it if Obsidian would return to gameplay that doesn’t completely evolve around using abilities. In the old ie games i would search through my inventory like scroll cases or potions or think of moving my units around and using terrain. The rts gameplay to me worked wonderfully with the per-rest system, it encouraged me to find different ways of handling encounters. I think it’s a pity that Obsidian invested a great amount of effort in creating loads of potions and other consumables and also terrain design but because of my abilities fully replenishing automatically after battles i’m not encouraged to use the a.m. Now the modern games are kind of ‘load the player with abilities and load the opposition with numbers’. That, together with countering not being as much of a factor as in BG2 makes deadfire combat ok in a Dragon Age-kind of way which is good if you like DA combat, i definitely prefer BG2 though. Isometric party-rpg has more potential than providing ability-centered gameplay.

 

Yeah, for me too, the old IE way is still the best possible ^^. I never enjoyed combat in any RPG as much as i did in BG1 and BG2. Probably because i never abused mechanics when possible. If i had the courage to find a way to try to install anew BG Trilogy with some other mods without destroying the install, i would rather play BGT once more, rather than Pillars. And when it came to resources management, priests were the best. I miss the old health system and priests healing outside combat so much, it hurts .

 

 

Give Big World Setup a go.

 

I'm replaying BG myself and compared to regular Trilogy or Tutu (which I used to play BG with) the Big World thingy is incredibly easy to use.

 

 

Oh? Is it possible to install mods like Secret of Bonehill or 1Pixel Productions on top of it? I have quite the list of mods i would like to install. But i always ended up with a broken install.

 

Et ce, malgré l'aide que j'ai trouvée sur les forums de la "Couronne de Cuivre" ^^

 

 

You can always try, Big World will list incompatibilities so it's probably your best bet to get a working modded game. Plus it's a pretty convenient tool.

 

Tu devrais essayer!

 

 

I will take note of this. And read about it sometime. I really need one, definite install of BG since i will always play it.

 

Grand merci

[the streaker]

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.

 

You don't play a fighter in BG2, you play a party of 6 characters. There is plenty to do in the battles without having to select every character and use up their class-specific mana to use full attack abilities which have no downside and it makes no sense not to use them all up in every fight. Little thought involved there. Might as well set the AI to use them automatically. Then might as well not have them and make them passive.

[Judicator]

 

 

Well, some of us like to play more alpha-masculine types that go toe to toe with monsters. I get it if you want to be at the back behind the men shooting your bow or wand or whatever tho. That's your playstyle, but you can't call another boring just because you don't like it.

 

That makes no difference. You play it although it is boring, because you like what it stands for. That doesn't change the fact that it comes with very limited options and repetitive gameplay. Also, you are sooo alpha. May I touch your muscles? Just once?

 

No, it's not boring to me. I enjoy hitting things with big swords. Why is this hard to understand?

 

Besides, this is a party based game, so you control magic users regardless of what class your playing (unless you're doing something like an all-warrior party some such).