No point in making builds right now when consumables are more op than the whole build itself

[giftmefood]

What's actually the point of tinkering with builds when any, I mean ANY build can ABSOLUTELY trash the game with just maxed out arcana or maxed out alchemy. It's just plain silly. Obsidian needs to really sort this out. 

 

What do you guys think?

[CountGrishnackh]

well there are stil builds that scale native spells from alchemy =D

[Manveru123]

I usually forget to use consumables. They're just overkill anyway.

[giftmefood]

well there are stil builds that scale native spells from alchemy =D

 

That doesn't help XD

 

and I'm pretty sure it's a bug. It's super fun though with plague of insects. damn 

[giftmefood]

I usually forget to use consumables. They're just overkill anyway.

 

yeah but the thing is. a level 10 chracter with maxed out arcana/alchemy will have an easier time than a well-built character that does not use consumables. it just kind of puts you off into tinkering with builds to get the most optimal result. 

[CountGrishnackh]

easiest approach would be

1.) remove skillscaling on native skills

2.) use only half alchemy/explosive/arcana skill for consumable powerlevel

 

better approach:

2.) implement scaling where u can use most scrolls without penalty at arcana 12 and grant only about 1 PL per 4 Arcana after

[MaxQuest]

What do you guys think?

Do have mixed feelings.

 

> I do find scrolls/arcana a sleeper OP.

Being able to cast Shining Beacons or Cleansing Flames at effectively power level 22... is really strong. At the same time, using it would be usually an overkill since boss fights are not hard enough, so why invest the points, crafting materials, money and time? Not to mention that there are quite many enemies immune to fire. It looks to me that the main use of scrolls/arcana is if you want to get some specific unique item through combat as early as possible.

Tbh I'd prefer it PL for scrolls was halved, i.e. equal to arcana/2. But when crafting you would get twice the scrolls.

 

> Do have a mixed feeling about alchemy. The main appeal was the speed bonuses. But with the heavy nerf of Potion of Deftness and Potion of Relentless Striking, alchemy has transformed from must-have on all dps characters to "well, I can live without it". The potions that provide +stats are still great though, if you have a dotter that is not a Helwalker.

Also poisons. Some of them look weak, others tick like a truck. So it feels either meh, or cheesy.

 

> Food. Food that gives immunity to afflictions makes taking all those counter-affliction chants and invocations kinda questionable. Not to mention priest inspirations; which are still to slow to cast for their effect.

 

> Traps. It takes time to put a trap and lure the enemies into it. But at the moment it's faster just to plainly jump and kill them.

Edited June 19, 2018 by MaxQuest

[CountGrishnackh]

priest buffs are actually so horrble due to their casttimes that i dont see any sense in a support-priest anymore. every other class gets all partybuffs in .4 sec or faster while priest takes half the fight, its a shame

[dunehunter]

In my own playthrough, I never use potions/drugs, traps, explosives, scrolls and food. That's just a personal flavor because I never use any consumables in bg2 and poe 1. 

 

I like per encounter abilities granted by gears tho.

 

Imo with the time wasting on designing different kind of consumables, they should make more unique items and make them more interesting. I know there are a lot players using consumables, but there must be a lot players who don't. So why waste time on something used by only part of audience, but not on something used by everyone? 

Edited June 19, 2018 by dunehunter

[giftmefood]

 

What do you guys think?

Do have mixed feelings.

 

> I do find scrolls/arcana a sleeper OP.

Being able to cast Shining Beacons or Cleansing Flames at effectively power level 22... is really strong. At the same time, using it would be usually an overkill since boss fights are not hard enough, so why invest the points, crafting materials, money and time? Not to mention that there are quite many enemies immune to fire. It looks to me that the main use of scrolls/arcana is if you want to get some specific unique item through combat as early as possible.

 

> Do have a mixed feeling about alchemy. The main appeal was the speed bonuses. But with the heavy nerf of Potion of Deftness and Potion of Relentless Striking, alchemy has transformed from must-have on all dps characters to "well, I can live without it". The potions that provide +stats are still great though, if you have a dotter that is not a Helwalker.

Also poisons. Some of them look weak, others tick like a truck. So it feels either meh, or cheesy.

 

> Food. Food that gives immunity to afflictions makes taking all those counter-affliction chants and invocations kinda questionable. Not to mention priest inspirations; which are still to slow to cast for their effect.

 

> Traps. It takes time to put a trap and lure the enemies into it. But at the moment it's faster just to plainly jump and kill them.

 

 

I think food and traps are in a balance state. It's more about the scrolls and potions you can get. 

 

For scrolls, great maelstrom and meteor shower can literally 1 shot any mob while you use scroll of withdraw so you don't get damaged

 

For potions, stone join and storm toxin are just goddamn stupid. The first one hits like a truck (150-200 per tick) while the second one gets the target paralyzed 100% of the time + ticking damage of 50-100. Insubstantial turns the enemys crits to hits and hits to misses by 47%, deadeye gives you 38% chance of interrupt plus a 27 accruacy, spirit shield gives you 7 armor + concentration bonus, perfect aim makes your misses to hits and your hits to crits by 47%, potion of impediment gives your attacks 67% chance to interrupt, acenscion gives you 5 power levels until combat ends. So many op things with alchemy. I'm sure there are many more.

Edited June 19, 2018 by giftmefood

[Shadenuat]

There is no point in builds in single player game at all actually, especially in one which you can finish without builds AND without consumables.

[mant2si]

I agreed with all posts in this thread. Now you must limited consumables use.  But without some consumables you can't rise penetration (sometimes I need only 2 - 3 points, not 7 -  8 ), to overpen that annoying armor system, and sometimes I needed +2 - 4 (I assume, this is legal value) to intellect to hit the cup

Edited June 19, 2018 by mant2si

[giftmefood]

There is no point in builds in single player game at all actually, especially in one which you can finish without builds AND without consumables.

 

Why even play a single player game if its just gonna be an unbalanced mess. 

 

 

Mario wouldn't be as popular today if it gave you an item that allowed you to not die from falling. In fact, no one would play it. 

Edited June 19, 2018 by giftmefood

[knownastherat]

There is no point in builds in single player game at all actually, especially in one which you can finish without builds AND without consumables.

 

Indeed, the logic that since its possible to stealth through the whole game there is no point to builds is not logic at all, but I am giving up my hopes that some people will ever get it. Same with the idiotic concept of "cheese" as some people will repeat it and no amount of reason can make them reconsider.

 

Well, I think I do not really care. Have 400 hours clocked in-game, will not ever play it with bots, this is not BG2 I played extensively for 3 years and we are in 2k18. So I guess, I will just move on. It's just too bad that someone takes on "the beloved Infinity Engine games", gets financed by backers and releases Deadfire 1.0 

[Archaven]

What's actually the point of tinkering with builds when any, I mean ANY build can ABSOLUTELY trash the game with just maxed out arcana or maxed out alchemy. It's just plain silly. Obsidian needs to really sort this out. 

 

What do you guys think?

 

NO. it should not. in my opinion it was by design. it's probably meant for solo build as well as an alternative for subpar builds to beat certain encounters. the game was designed so that any builds should be viable with the aid of alchemy, explosives and arcana.

 

and it's optional. you don't need to use it if you do not want to. IF you know what you are doing, you are supposed to be rewarded. perhaps you are asking for more harder battles even you did the right thing and basically that means you want a even higher difficulty that only certain builds can beat it (which is a wrong game design). the game provide you 55 combinations (and possibly hundreds more including subclass) each of your build should be a viable build by all these supplements.

 

otherwise why not you advise us how you design the game to be hard and not break balance. remember your balance (even it's HARD every build should able to beat the encounter). please enlighten me.

[Verde]

Because not everyone is a plant gobbler or magic spewer? Whether for roleplay reasons (a Rogue with Arcane, ha!) Or they simply don't care to micromanage to that level. I may apply to both lol.

Edited June 19, 2018 by Verde

[Loren Tyr]

I also don't get this logic. If you think certain parts of the game are overpowered and using them ruin the difficulty for you, why not choose not to use them / use them sparingly / use only some of them / don't increase the corresponding skill / et cetera? There are plenty of legitimate arguments to be made that the game needs more balancing in various ways, and hopefully Obsidian will get to doing so. But it seems odd to let that diminish your enjoyment of the game in the meantime.

 

It's not multiplayer, you don't have to compete against other players, so you can challenge yourself however you see fit, choose to impose whatever additional restrictions that improve the experience for you (either by yourself or via mods / console; and the reverse as well, if you want to make yourself a Death / Fire godlike hybrid, why not?). It's hardly like it's unprecendent either, a solo playthrough is essentially nothing more than imposing a restriction of not using companions on yourself after all; plenty of people doing that too.

[CountGrishnackh]

i believe there is a difference between consumables making the game easier and consumables being so strong that only using them instead of native abilities becomes the optimal choice.

not that you need them to succeed in higher difficulties, but from an optimization standpoint its a nobrainer, no meaningful resource cost, unlimited usability in fights and more powerful then base abilities. the problem isn't that you can't challange yourself

the problem is that there are people that dont play for the challange but to come up with great ideas, builds and party compositions only to find out that the most meaningful choice you can ever make in this game is "do i take alchemy or arcana".

[AeonsLegend]

Like I said in another topic. Remove figurines and scrolls. Or make scrolls cost so much money that you'd be an idiot to craft/buy them. But definitely figurines. At level 6 I had like 8 of them or something crazy like that.

[knownastherat]

Why do you want them to be removed? Don't like them do not use them. I want figurines and I want to control them (why it was changed from PoE is beyond me). 

 

Remove figurines from your game, or rather keep them in your backpack. 

[Dorftek]

Alch and arcana and explosives are kinda out of hand right now yeah. So are figurines. However if gear and abilities were brought up to the same level and the game was then balanced around that I wouldn't mind but it is quite boring when classes don't really matter.

 

The gear in this game is quite boring too honestly. There's only a very few items in the game that gives u the feeling of being "unique". Where are my unique battleaxes? Where are my frost enhancing items? Decay-type items? Nah, in deadfire u go strictly shock or burn!

 

Why can't Lifegiver druids summon creatures? They are called LIFEGIVERS lol. Oh well I don't have time to rant anymore my phone is about to die

[knownastherat]

The answers to your questions lies here I believe: 

 

 

"reduce the gulf between viability and the optimal end"  or "primary goal no bad builds". I found the vid very interesting as I do not follow the devs on social media but this video made few things clear to me.

 

The consequence of the philosophy presented in the vid is the current state of the game - "normalize" classes and builds and introduce items and mechanics to support further "normalization". So anyone can take the helmet and be the lightning god or alchemy and be I dunno what .. ****ing arsenic god. 

Edited June 19, 2018 by knownastherat

[AeonsLegend]

Why do you want them to be removed? Don't like them do not use them. I want figurines and I want to control them (why it was changed from PoE is beyond me). 

 

Remove figurines from your game, or rather keep them in your backpack. 

Because they break the game?

[knownastherat]

Not for me, I do not play with 4 bots called companions. 

[Loren Tyr]

i believe there is a difference between consumables making the game easier and consumables being so strong that only using them instead of native abilities becomes the optimal choice.

not that you need them to succeed in higher difficulties, but from an optimization standpoint its a nobrainer, no meaningful resource cost, unlimited usability in fights and more powerful then base abilities. the problem isn't that you can't challange yourself

the problem is that there are people that dont play for the challange but to come up with great ideas, builds and party compositions only to find out that the most meaningful choice you can ever make in this game is "do i take alchemy or arcana".

 

Even if it is the most optimal choice, that doesn't make it the most meaningful. If you enjoy coming up with fun and interesting builds and parties, why not just do that? Use alchemy and arcana and whatever if you enjoy them, don't if you don't. Certainly, them being better balanced will give more options for people who don't want their characters to be too overpowered, and I hope that happens. But it's not as if you're somehow forced to use them in the meantime.