Why did obsidian make the changes to the casting and rest system?

[cokane]

Assuming that everyone rests before every boss fight is untrue. And it's another example of hyperbole being used instead of actual arguments. It was impossible to always predict when there would be a boss fight in the BG games, as you could not sneak up on every single fight with the ease of Pillars. You could not rest in certain sections of BG dungeon crawls, because the ambush rate was 100%.

 

Moreover, the fact that you *can* rest in the original Pillars does not break my thought experiment. You would still be spending -- especially on higher difficulties -- a precious resource. Camping supplies probably should have cost more gold and been rarer in the world, but that's a different complaint. Regardless, you were still forced to make a choice (push on at half-strength or burn a key resource) and deal with its consequences (maybe lose the fight or maybe regret having burned a resource you later needed). In fact, how well you tackled those goblin fights will very much effect this decision's calculus.

 

This is a far more interesting dynamic than approaching every fight with the same basic strategy -- unload your best spells and abilities always. And it's far better for sustaining fun over tens if not one hundred hours of play, in my opinion.

Edited July 21, 2018 by cokane

[Boeroer]

Oops - double post.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Why are you guys mixing up per-rest/per-encounter with the limited ability/spell choice and endurance/health or even cast- and recovery times? Those are all seperate things. Saying that PoE1's per rest system is better because you have more spell choice is nonsense. Same as saying Deadfire's per-encounter system is better because it doesn't have persistent health loss anymore.

 

It would have been no problem to do Deadfire with the per-encounter spell system but the spell choices and the health system of PoE.

 

If you want to discuss those things, don't mix them up but isolate them. Else it's all a huge hodgepodge.

 

For me as a player who tends to play those games multiple times the PoE system was more fun. Also because meta knowledge is more rewarding. The seperated class abilities in combination with universal talents gave a lot of combos for a non-multiclass class system. The whole endurance/health mechanics allowed for more build variation and it made high defense builds play differently than high healing builds (which basically play the same in Deadfire). On the other hand level ups in Deadfire have more meanig especially for casters. The abilities need better balance though so that you don't end up with the same picks all the time

 

I do think that a per-rest system is harder to balance (when designing encounters) in a way that every fight is equally difficult. But on the other hand: do they have to be? Not for me.

 

And then: what is the empower mechanic? Since it mainly serves casters atm it's nothing but a caster's per-rest system in disguise. Even ciphers now have a per-rest mechanic with empower. How does one balance around that? Rest-spamming aside: Since Empower has so much impact on certain actions (you can one-shot whole groups with an empowered AoE spell) AND is more binary and limited I think it's even harder to balance for that than PoE ever was. The difference between a fight wit no empower use compared to a fight with empower use can be huge.

 

Saying that a boss fight in PoE was easier than a common Xaurips fight (in the same area) seems disingenuous. It was certainly not, even if you unleashed all your spells. Seldomly got wiped by a Xaurip party even when using no spells at all.

 

Having said all that: Deadfire's combat doesn't feel significantly less enjoyable for me. Just a bit. So maybe other factors than per rest/per encounter play a role as well.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Boeroer

[Novem]

REPLYING @COKANE

 

Assuming that everyone rests before every boss fight is untrue.

 

It really isn't.

 

It was impossible to always predict when there would be a boss fight in the BG games, as you could not sneak up on every single fight with the ease of Pillars.

 

I don't remember ever being surprised by a boss fight in Baldur's Gate, but that game already has rampant save scumming as a core feature so even if it didn't, I honestly don't even count the first time I face any given opponent as an actual encounter. The game is intentionally constructed so that you'll lose most given encounters the first time you play them.

 

You could not rest in certain sections of BG dungeon crawls, because the ambush rate was 100%.

 

Which just means people run back to town before boss fights to rest. There's no functional difference. I know, because this is exactly the way I played Baldur's Gate, and which is also the reason I found that game incredibly tedious and boring.

 

You would still be spending -- especially on higher difficulties -- a precious resource. Camping supplies probably should have cost more gold and been rarer in the world, but that's a different complaint.

 

No it isn't, and because of that it's not really a different complaint. If camping supplies are easy to get your hands on and there is no real punishment for running back to town, then they are definitively not a precious resource. These issues cannot be addressed in isolation from each other just because it's convenient for your argument. In Pillars, whether or not you used resting supplies was purely a tax on your time and patience, this is why they were removed to begin with. Personally I liked the dynamic resting added to the game in Pillars 1 specifically, because at least on Hard camping supplies were just rare enough that I only had to run back to town occasionally, but I'd take the less conservative/more engaging playstyle of Deadfire's combat over that dynamic any day. Especially because resting mechanics can easily get out of hand and become extremely tedious, like in Baldur's Gate.

 

And it's far better for sustaining fun over tens if not one hundred hours of play, in my opinion.

 

I've played Pillars 1 close to 200 hours and my patience with that game's combat was brutally shot way before even half that number. Deadfire's clearer mechanics, superior encounter design, more thoughtful pacing, greater build diversity, reduced micromanagement, and less repetitive nature has kept it fresh even after 80 hours. This is a game I'm going to replay in 3 years and still be having fun with the combat. Pillars 1 was a game where I was bored of the combat before I even finished my first run because the cheese tactics were easily identified and easily exploitable, because I was discouraged from actually making use of my classes kit in favor of waiting for things to die from normal attacks, and because of it's extreme overabundance of not very well-thought out encounters.

 

REPLYING @BOEROER

 

Why are you guys mixing up per-rest/per-encounter with the limited ability/spell choice and endurance/health or even cast- and recovery times?

 

Because they are rather tightly entwined with each other. I agree that it kind of mucks up the argument, but they are relevant to the topic. Unless you're saying the ability for wizards to mindlessly throw overpowered spells at an extreme clip isn't a fairly important part of why Pillars 1 is such an easy game?

 

 It would have been no problem to do Deadfire with the per-encounter spell system but the spell choices and the health system of PoE.

 

To be honest I don't really see the argument to begin with. I used a much smaller variety of spells in POE1, because it was pretty clear which ones were stronger and that spamming them makes combat far easier. Deadfire's spells are far more balanced against each other, and the more restricted action economy means you can't just win by spamming the ones that do the most damage.

 

*empower stuff*

 

To be honest, I intentionally avoid using empowers because I don't like how it plays with the game's other mechanics. It just feels like something completely incongruent with the way Deadfire is designed.

 

Saying that a boss fight in PoE was easier than a common Xaurips fight (in the same area) seems disingenuous. It was certainly not, even if you unleashed all your spells. Seldomly got wiped by a Xaurip party even when using no spells at all.

 

That's fair I suppose. But Xaurip fights still take longer than spamming Ninaguth's Shadowflame at just about any given boss mob. As long as you don't massively **** something up, I'd say the actual chances of dying is about the same. And I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at the game or anything.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Novem

[PizzaSHARK]

TLDR: Per encounter systems like in Pillars 2 make for more a more consistently engaging game by eliminating conservation behaviors that discourage the player from interacting with the game's systems and encourage behaviors which actively make the game less engaging.

 

Deadfire has the most boring, least interesting combat in any CRPG I've played in several years, including Pillars.  It's that way because of truly awful design choices and half-baked ideas.  It's not the fault of the switch to per-encounter spells, but switching to per-encounter spells is part of the problem.

 

 

Deadfire has longer cast times and interruptions as a concept. It's not just the casting of spells that's important, it's positioning your spells and being conscious of the threat the caster is under. This is in addition to having to account for what types of afflictions your enemy resists, what types of afflictions you yourself have, and much more.

 

More importantly though, the average fight in Pillars 1 had the much smaller repertoire of 0 because you aren't allowed to cast spells in most fights. And even when you do get to cast spells, there's not much more to it than point and click.

 

Your argument literally makes no sense.

 

 

 

What a crock of ****.  Interruptions are not a credible facet of gameplay.  They like to pretend they are, but in practice you don't interrupt spells because you just spam your CC abilities on the guy and he dies before he gets a spell off.

 

You were able to cast spells in Pillars, what the **** are you talking about?  Just because you weren't competent enough to figure out how to manage your spell use and gauge whether or not spells were needed to win the fight while minimizing health damage taken doesn't mean you "couldn't cast spells."

 

Spellcasting in Deadfire is no different than it was in Pillars.  Your argument makes no sense.

 

Who doesn't rest immediately before a boss fight? Even if you haven't played the game before boss fights are signposted in these sorts of games.

 

Don't get me wrong, I prefer per rest for Druids, Priests and Wizards, but that argument is pretty weak even to me, and I avoid rest spamming.

 

There's a pretty ****ing easy solution to this - don't allow resting in dangerous areas and add penalties or changes for leaving an area unfinished.  If you're invading the dragon's lair and you need to rest before fighting the dragon itself... for one, you can't rest in the dragon's lair or in the exterior areas in the surrounding area, the dragon will not ****ing let you do that.  So you have to leave the region and go somewhere safer to rest, at which point the dragon either moves elsewhere or has repopulated its lair with new minions and traps (repopulating is easier but harder to fluff, especially if you slaughtered the vast majority of its minions on the way in.)

 

This would require Obsidian to actually improve upon gameplay concepts that are nearly 20 years old, though.  Or you can half-ass it and more or less remove resting/attrition entirely, except then reintroduce it in an unlimited format (why WOULDN'T you open every single ****ing encounter with an empowered AOE spell if the game lets you??) because apparently the design team couldn't make up their minds what kind of game they wanted to make.

 

I personally prefer Vancian, attrition-based gameplay because of the strategic element it layers over top of the tactical elements, but I do agree that as it was implemented in Pillars and the IE games... it's not really much different from encounter-based because there wasn't anything of significance stopping you from resting after every encounter if you really wanted to.  I think either gameplay style is perfectly fine if it's implemented well.  The problem is PIllars didn't fully explore the idea (the limited resting supplies was a half-assed attempt at making people think about when to rest that didn't really do anything but make resting tedious) and Deadfire went several steps in the opposite direction and then didn't bother adjusting the game to suit it.  What's the point of having an ancient crypt full of deadly traps if I can just conga line my dudes through the traps, rest every time each person caps out their injuries, and rinse and repeat until I get through?

[Novem]

Deadfire has the most boring, least interesting combat in any CRPG I've played in several years, including Pillars.

 

Well, that's just like, your opinion man.

 

Maybe try making an argument with some substance instead of just saying things and assuming other people have to agree with you. Also maybe cut down on the profanity a bit, you seem to be getting overly emotional about this.

 

What a crock of ****.  Interruptions are not a credible facet of gameplay.  They like to pretend they are, but in practice you don't interrupt spells because you just spam your CC abilities on the guy and he dies before he gets a spell off.

 

You do realize, your argument that interruptions are not a credible facet of gameplay is essentially that you're playing the game in such a way that you avoid getting interrupted. Like, you do realize how silly that is right? If they weren't a "credible facet of gameplay", then you would play as if they didn't exist. But your defense for this point is that you play like they do exist. So which is it? Are they a credible facet of gameplay or not?

 

You were able to cast spells in Pillars, what the **** are you talking about?

 

Most fights in Pillars 1 are over by the time you exhaust your repertoire of per encounter spells, especially late-game once you can have a fireball on-demand. It's not that you can't cast spells, it's that there is no reason to waste them because you can win just about every encounter without using them. And in the one's you can't, you might as well just use all of them and avoid the risk of dying.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Novem

[JerekKruger]

Assuming that everyone rests before every boss fight is untrue. 

 

By not doing so you're essentially setting yourself an artificial challenge. That's fine and dandy, people already do that in all sorts of ways, but it's not typical behaviour and devs aren't going to balance around it because most people are going to rest before boss fights (in the unlikely eventuality they fail to realise a boss fight is coming they'll likely wipe, reload, and rest before the boss fight the second time round).

 

Moreover, the fact that you *can* rest in the original Pillars does not break my thought experiment.

 

 

So when exactly would you use these 'rare' camping supplies if not before a boss?

 

This is a far more interesting dynamic than approaching every fight with the same basic strategy -- unload your best spells and abilities always. And it's far better for sustaining fun over tens if not one hundred hours of play, in my opinion.

 

 

Completely agree, I just think you're wrong about boss fights 

Edited July 21, 2018 by JerekKruger

[Celan]

Why are you guys mixing up per-rest/per-encounter with the limited ability/spell choice and endurance/health or even cast- and recovery times? Those are all seperate things. Saying that PoE1's per rest system is better because you have more spell choice is nonsense. Same as saying Deadfire's per-encounter system is better because it doesn't have persistent health loss anymore.

Because the OP asked about changes to the casting system, not just the rest system. And if you like spamming the same few spells every time, if that's an enjoyable player experience for you, I suppose PoE2 is the game for you.

 

That's fair I suppose. But Xaurip fights still take longer than spamming Ninaguth's Shadowflame at just about any given boss mob. As long as you don't massively **** something up, I'd say the actual chances of dying is about the same. And I wouldn't say I'm particularly good at the game or anything.

This response makes me think you're not really serious. Although granted, the druid toolkit in PoE1 was excellent for mobs. Not so much now that I have to play junior healer all the time.

 

The casting changes more than anything else has killed PoE2's replayability for me. I spent upwards of 300 hours on PoE1, mostly with a druid PC. Also the companion blah'ness. For both reasons I doubt I'll replay PoE2 at all, and I'm even considering not getting the expansions. Still undecided on that.

[Novem]

What about what I said makes you think "I'm not serious"? It is hilariously easy to spam kill basically anything in the game. POE1 wizards are ridiculously overpowered. If they have even an inch of space and a full spellbook, they can free-spam massive AOE spells that can dps+cc mobs simultaneously. Just because something takes longer to beat because it has a longer health bar does not mean it's any more difficult.

 

Magic in Deadfire is a lot more tactical because it's removed that spamming mentality, magic is strong but it needs to be used properly. Literally playing the games back to back as a wizard, as I have, makes the difference in the actual nuance of spellcasting between the games fairly clear. Magic in POE1 is fairly point and click, especially late-game. In Deadfire I actually have to think about how I'm positioning, whether or not I have concentration, whether or not enemies are likely to actively interrupt me, etc. I find it much more engaging, especially because I can actively reposition my spells during casting.

 

I'm not sure about Druids, but judging by Hiravias/Takehu, the class never really seemed all that interesting to me to begin with. I don't find either of them very fun or interactive to play, and as far as contributions to a fight it kind of feels like they're barely even there. That's probably just me not playing the class correctly though.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Novem

[mant2si]

What about what I said makes you think "I'm not serious"? It is hilariously easy to spam kill basically anything in the game. POE1 wizards are ridiculously overpowered. If they have even an inch of space and a full spellbook, they can free-spam massive AOE spells that can dps+cc mobs simultaneously. Just because something takes longer to beat because it has a longer health bar does not mean it's any more difficult.

 

Magic in Deadfire is a lot more tactical because it's removed that spamming mentality, magic is strong but it needs to be used properly. Literally playing the games back to back as a wizard, as I have, makes the difference in the actual nuance of spellcasting between the games fairly clear.

 

I'm not sure about Druids, but judging by Hiravias/Takehu, the class never really seemed all that interesting to me to begin with. I don't find either of them very fun or interactive to play, and as far as contributions to a fight it kind of feels like they're barely even there.

But PoE 2 wizards is OK, they have grimoiries, self buffs which stack with everything else, different spells that have different game mechanics, they even has grimoire that give them +1 to all spells and with empower they can cast x4  time each spell level exclude L9 and reach PoE 1 spell amount for high tier spells

 

Game has big problems with priests and druids:

 

At first Obsidian kills druids by give players all their top tier spells as cheap scrolls alternative

At second they kills priests by stupid buff stacking and inspirations systems

 

And after all that they give them only 1 set of same spell, you just spam same spells AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN .... At first there no difference between druids and priest, you just craft  3 - 4 scrolls and  you have any class + best druid/priest spells

 

- - - - - - 

 

I can say for sure that Priest maybe the strongest class in the game BUT .... because of damage spells, you just click one button and watch how enemies die. Did I like this ? Nope

Edited July 21, 2018 by mant2si

[Novem]

But PoE 2 wizards is OK, they have grimories, self buffs which stack with everything else, different spells that have different game mechanics

 

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but POE2 wizards are certainly more balanced than in POE1, yes. They have some pretty good strengths, but they don't push every other class out from relevance, and it's basically impossible for them to win fights by themselves. You also actually need to keep them protected, which wasn't really a factor in POE1. But pre-release, during Backer Beta, people were complaining about how underpowered they felt wizards were, so if you feel POE2 wizards are still kind of overpowered... blame them. I'm fairly satisfied with where they are right now myself, but I could definitely see an argument for them still being a little bit ahead of the curve.

 

At second they kills priests by stupid buff stacking and inspirations systems

 

I actually enjoy Priests quite a bit in POE2. Priests felt very reactive in POE1, the new afflictions system really opens them up to being more proactive. Xoti is one of my favorite party members to control because I can really put my foot on the pedal for my party when I feel I have a good opportunity. The inspiration/affliction system is really a huge success as far as I'm concerned, especially with the Enhanced UI mod so you know which inspirations pair with which afflictions. It feels very rock-paper-scissors, but with lots more options. You have to weigh the benefits of which inspiration fits which situation, or if you should prioritize removing debuffs over layering buffs and then extending the duration with Salvation of Time.

 

At first there no difference between druids and priest, you just craft  3 - 4 scrolls and  you have any class + best druid/priest spells

 

I don't really use the crafting system myself. Using consumables during combat is still pretty tedious, especially if the consumables you're trying to use don't have really obvious use-cases that make them easy to rig AI for using (and even then, once they're gone or you want to upgrade to a better version, you need to rig the AI again and manage their quick item inventories). It just really slows down the pacing of the game so I mostly ignore it. IMO, it's a UI problem, and they need to make consumables visible on the top layer to cut down digging through the bag so I can remember which companions have what stuff equipped. I could also get behind making consumables Witcher 3 style, where after crafting a consumable it's permanent and you just need to refill it (I actually think that would be pretty cool as a per-rest mechanic).

 

Also consumables feel like a fairly low priority when enchanting equipment and upgrading your ship is so expensive. I used crafting a bit early on, but then I realized I was burning money I needed for other stuff that felt more important.

 

Either way though, isn't this kind of a good thing? One of the biggest complaints about POE1 was that priests were basically 100% necessary in almost any viable party setup. Letting you pump arcana score so you can make characters into sort of "off-priests" seems like a good thing as far as opening up party configurations.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Novem

[Celan]

What about what I said makes you think "I'm not serious"? It is hilariously easy to spam kill basically anything in the game. POE1 wizards are ridiculously overpowered. If they have even an inch of space and a full spellbook, they can free-spam massive AOE spells that can dps+cc mobs simultaneously. Just because something takes longer to beat because it has a longer health bar does not mean it's any more difficult.

Your statement that a xaurip fight is harder than a boss fight.

 

Druids were extremely deadly in PoE1, especially with mobs. In PoE2 you aren't deadly and you aren't a great healer, you're just the weak link. I guess you have to play wizard in PoE2 in order to still feel like a spellcaster.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Celan

[mant2si]

>  I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic

 

Nope. Wizards is OK that not sarcasm

 

>  One of the biggest complaints about POE1 was that priests were basically 100% necessary in almost any viable party setup. Letting you pump arcana score so you can make characters into sort of "off-priests" seems like a good thing as far as opening up party configurations.

 

And that sound logically :D You need priest to survive that his job, if you need inspirations just pick chanter with infinity spells. Priest should stay in middle of battle and call his god to protect, your party, you know that epic feeling when enemies spells can't do nothing to your party because god protect them, not because you inspire them to +5 Perception

 > I don't really use the crafting system myself. 

OK. But Obisdian introduce this system for all players. For example I really upset when I release that my Druid MC is worsts than Assassin with Maelstrom Scroll. Did you feel good when assassin cast spell better than your caster or just try to ignore that thoughts ? I like roleplay and I like feel like guy who manipulate water/fire/rock and then I see maelstorm scroll in loot :D It laugh on me

Edited July 21, 2018 by mant2si

[Novem]

Your statement that a xaurip fight is harder than a boss fight.

 

Druids were extremely deadly in PoE1, especially with mobs. In PoE2 you aren't deadly and you aren't a great healer, you're just the weak link. I guess you have to play wizard in PoE2 in order to still feel like a spellcaster.

 

Because that is completely true in most cases. They may take longer, but they certainly aren't more difficult. Especially if they aren't immune to paralysis. At least in my experience.

 

If that's the case, then Druids should really be buffed. Maybe 2.0 will throw you a bone.

 

You need priest to survive that his job, if you need inspirations just pick chanter with infinity spells

 

Or you can do both. That's what I'm doing. Inspirations aren't just needed for buffs, you need them to counter debuffs. Trading them around is a pretty big part of the combat system.

 

For example I really upset when I release that my Druid MC is worsts than Assassin with Maelstrom Scroll. Did you feel good when assassin cast spell better than your caster or just try to ignore that thoughts ?

 

I can't really say I care all that much personally. It's not like you don't have to sacrifice anything to get that ability.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Novem

[Celan]

If that's the case, then Druids should really be buffed. Maybe 2.0 will throw you a bone.

So you need a mod to make sense of the casting system?

 

Buffing a few druid spells is not going to fix what's wrong with them IMO. The limitations of level up and restricted casting per encounter are baked in. I guess it would help if there was some druid-specific equipment like the +1 cast rings that priests and wizards get. Or let druids use nature-based grimoires, to get the versatility back.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Celan

[baldurs_gate_2]

 

If that's the case, then Druids should really be buffed. Maybe 2.0 will throw you a bone.

So you need a mod to make sense of the casting system?

 

Buffing a few druid spells is not going to fix what's wrong with them IMO. The limitations of level up and restricted casting per encounter are baked in. I guess it would help if there was some druid-specific equipment like the +1 cast rings that priests and wizards get. Or let druids use nature-based grimoires, to get the versatility back.

 

The druid class was maybe the strongest class, because of the raw damage plague of insects did with alchemy. If they just would have kept that xd Just cast it and use beetle shell, everything that is not poison immune dies.

[Novem]

So you need a mod to make sense of the casting system?

 

Deadfire's famously bad tutorials strike again. I don't even think the game actually tells you how the system works if I really think about it, and unless you plan to memorize which afflictions and inspirations are which type, it's basically impossible to play around the system. Obsidian really needs to package Enhanced UI with the game if at all possible, I could never go back to playing without it. Funny how such little things can completely change an experience though.

 

Buffing a few druid spells is not going to fix what's wrong with them IMO. The limitations of level up and restricted casting per encounter are baked in. I guess it would help if there was some druid-specific equipment like the +1 cast rings that priests and wizards get. Or let druids use nature-based grimoires, to get the versatility back.

 

I'd really like if all of the classes had their own trinkets actually. It'd be pretty cool. There's actually a mod that does that, not sure if it's been updated for the recent patches though.

 

Honestly I can't wait until this game is in it's final state. The game has plenty of cool mods as it is (like I actually just found a mod for per encounter consumables while looking up the trinket mod), it'll be even better once the modders don't have to worry about a patch breaking their stuff.

Edited July 21, 2018 by Novem

[PizzaSHARK]

 

Deadfire has the most boring, least interesting combat in any CRPG I've played in several years, including Pillars.

 

Well, that's just like, your opinion man.

 

Maybe try making an argument with some substance instead of just saying things and assuming other people have to agree with you. Also maybe cut down on the profanity a bit, you seem to be getting overly emotional about this.

 

What a crock of ****.  Interruptions are not a credible facet of gameplay.  They like to pretend they are, but in practice you don't interrupt spells because you just spam your CC abilities on the guy and he dies before he gets a spell off.

 

You do realize, your argument that interruptions are not a credible facet of gameplay is essentially that you're playing the game in such a way that you avoid getting interrupted. Like, you do realize how silly that is right? If they weren't a "credible facet of gameplay", then you would play as if they didn't exist. But your defense for this point is that you play like they do exist. So which is it? Are they a credible facet of gameplay or not?

 

You were able to cast spells in Pillars, what the **** are you talking about?

 

Most fights in Pillars 1 are over by the time you exhaust your repertoire of per encounter spells, especially late-game once you can have a fireball on-demand. It's not that you can't cast spells, it's that there is no reason to waste them because you can win just about every encounter without using them. And in the one's you can't, you might as well just use all of them and avoid the risk of dying.

 

 

I literally have not interacted with interruptions in Deadfire, at all, ever.  I don't move people to avoid them getting interrupted, I move them because letting the enemy fighter beat on my squishy wizard is stupid.  I am not worried about the fighter using an interrupt on my wizard, I am worried about the fighter bending them like a cheap folding chair.  Similarly, I don't hold abilities in reserve to interrupt enemy spells, I just ****ing CC them and kill them while they're busy being stunned or paralyzed or whatever.  You do, realize, that you're making a mountain out of a molehill?  Interruption mechanics are a non-factor in Deadfire, yet you're seizing on them because they're one of like... two or three allegedly tactical things the pathetically shallow combat mechanics allow for.

 

Most fights in Pillars are over before you exhaust your spell list BECAUSE IT'S A VANCIAN MAGIC GAME AND YOU ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE USING ALL OF YOUR SPELLS IN A SINGLE ENCOUNTER, unless maybe it's a boss fight or you're picking a fight with something way out of your league.  Just because Pillars' implementation of Vancian magic is **** (there's no risk or cost to just blowing everything and taking a nap and repeating as often as needed to cruise through a dungeon, which defeats the purpose of having Vancian magic in the first place...) doesn't mean there's something fundamentally wrong with the mechanical concept.  In a game with a not-**** implementation of Vancian magic, you wouldn't generally be able to use all your spells in a single fight because you'd be pretty well ****ed if you DID do that and it wasn't the last encounter before your party is able to secure a location to get a full 8 hours of rest in.  Pillars was basically a half-assed version of Vancian magic that PLAYED like a half-assed version of encounter-based magic.  Deadfire took a couple more steps towards encounter-based magic, but threw out a lot of stuff along the way, added in some more Vancian stuff for some horribly retarded reason, and never really replaced the stuff it removed with anything - so despite being closer to being a proper encounter-based system, it feels even more ramshackle than the first game did.

 

 

What about what I said makes you think "I'm not serious"? It is hilariously easy to spam kill basically anything in the game. POE1 wizards are ridiculously overpowered. If they have even an inch of space and a full spellbook, they can free-spam massive AOE spells that can dps+cc mobs simultaneously. Just because something takes longer to beat because it has a longer health bar does not mean it's any more difficult.

 

Magic in Deadfire is a lot more tactical because it's removed that spamming mentality, magic is strong but it needs to be used properly. Literally playing the games back to back as a wizard, as I have, makes the difference in the actual nuance of spellcasting between the games fairly clear. Magic in POE1 is fairly point and click, especially late-game. In Deadfire I actually have to think about how I'm positioning, whether or not I have concentration, whether or not enemies are likely to actively interrupt me, etc. I find it much more engaging, especially because I can actively reposition my spells during casting.

 

I'm not sure about Druids, but judging by Hiravias/Takehu, the class never really seemed all that interesting to me to begin with. I don't find either of them very fun or interactive to play, and as far as contributions to a fight it kind of feels like they're barely even there. That's probably just me not playing the class correctly though.

 

This makes no goddamn sense.

 

In Pillars, you had X spells per day and that was it - you had to rest if you wanted them back.  At high levels, you got a handful of spells that could be used X times per encounter, but they were relatively few in number.

 

In Deadfire, you may use every single spell in your spellbook in every single encounter.  You have fewer spells per level to cast, but you have absolutely no reason to hold onto those spells.

 

I have no goddamn clue how you can possibly accuse Pillars of being more spammy than Deadfire despite Deadfire being designed from the ground up to have you rattle off all of your spells in every single ****ing encounter while Pillars at least in theory was designed around you needing to make all of your spells last as many encounters as possible since you didn't get them back between fights and resting was, in theory, limited.

 

 

 

So you need a mod to make sense of the casting system?

 

Deadfire's famously bad tutorials strike again. I don't even think the game actually tells you how the system works if I really think about it, and unless you plan to memorize which afflictions and inspirations are which type, it's basically impossible to play around the system. Obsidian really needs to package Enhanced UI with the game if at all possible, I could never go back to playing without it. Funny how such little things can completely change an experience though.

 

Buffing a few druid spells is not going to fix what's wrong with them IMO. The limitations of level up and restricted casting per encounter are baked in. I guess it would help if there was some druid-specific equipment like the +1 cast rings that priests and wizards get. Or let druids use nature-based grimoires, to get the versatility back.

 

I'd really like if all of the classes had their own trinkets actually. It'd be pretty cool. There's actually a mod that does that, not sure if it's been updated for the recent patches though.

 

Honestly I can't wait until this game is in it's final state. The game has plenty of cool mods as it is (like I actually just found a mod for per encounter consumables while looking up the trinket mod), it'll be even better once the modders don't have to worry about a patch breaking their stuff.

 

 

Per-encounter consumables was an idea I had a while back, I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one with the idea.  It makes much more sense, especially for a per-encounter game (where having consumable consumables doesn't really make sense since the per-encounter concept is based around "assume the player has everything in their toolbox at their disposal," not "assume the player has used three of their five healing potions and four of their six available spells.")  Increase crafting costs for each item but then make it usable X times per encounter, per quick slot dedicated to that item.  I'll have to look into that mod and see how they decided to implement the per-encounter concept.  Thanks for mentioning it.

[Celan]

The druid class was maybe the strongest class, because of the raw damage plague of insects did with alchemy. If they just would have kept that xd Just cast it and use beetle shell, everything that is not poison immune dies.

I consider that an exploit and even if I'd been aware of it, not sure I'd use it, since it makes no sense.

[Vaneglorious]

Who defines what "real" wizards should do? I mean because there are no real wizards, so I'm kind of curious...

Speak for yourself, Boeroer, my gf is a wizard IRL.

 

She can make my money disappear without a trace.

[Blovski]

I must admit the more i play deadfire the more i wish they had left the casting and rest system alone and kept it more like the first game.

 

What i cant figure out is what positives they actually achieved by nerfing all casters to only 2 spells per level per fight. I honestly have no idea.

 

What i have noticed is that casters have become far less flexible with very severe limitations in battle. In the first game my casters where constantly changing tactics to suit different encounters now in deadfire they seem to be casting the same spells over and over and over and over every fight.

 

Also why do only wizards get grimoires to help shuffle spells around? What happened to priests and druids? Did obsidian forget about them or something? I dont understand how one caster class could have this huge benefit and all the other classes simply are gimped. It could be argued that the druid gets spiritshift to compensate but the priest gets absolutely nothing of any value.

While I'm sure everything to be said has been said already, I'll throw my hat into the ring:

 

A) multiclass. Pretty sure it's basically impossible to balance spellcaster multis around 28 spells per rest.

 

B) The vancian system didn't really sit well with POE's discrete combat encounters. In BG2 your spells have varying durations outside combat and you need specific spells prepared for specific things. Invisibility/Stoneskin/Strength have huge durations outside combat, summons can be pre-cast, you have raise dead spells so it's not the end of the world if a character dies on you, you're often balancing your damage spells against having something like Knock available. In POE because your spells aren't specifically prepared and are all in-combat only it doesn't really make so much sense. Also there are basically no limitations for item availability.

 

C) non-caster per rest options were fairly awful because you were deciding whether to take an ability based on whether you wanted to rest a minimum of twice per map in order to use it once per fight, which often involved laborious backtracking. I don't think this was a problem for wizards or druids because you have twenty six other spells per day you can use but for Rogues it meant things like Finishing Blow were just a lot of work to pick and get any use out of.

 

D) It wasn't remotely hard to go into every really tough fight in Pillars 1 with Dragon Meat Dish bonuses, a good resting bonus, fully rested & with a bunch of consumables in place. It was fairly rare that you had to actually compromise on what spells you were using due to Vancian limitations.

That said, I think I liked the caster balance a little more in POE 1 but it was changed for broadly reasonable reasons and the multiclass options in particular make it wholly worthwhile. I think specific balance concerns with the Priest and Druid spell pool or Cipher resource balance are largely separate from the rest changes.

[Novem]

I literally have not interacted with interruptions in Deadfire, at all, ever.  I don't move people to avoid them getting interrupted, I move them because letting the enemy fighter beat on my squishy wizard is stupid.

 

Hey, I'm not the one who said you interacted with interruptions, you did. You can change what you're saying now but we all know what you said originally.

 

Just because Pillars' implementation of Vancian magic is **** (there's no risk or cost to just blowing everything and taking a nap and repeating as often as needed to cruise through a dungeon, which defeats the purpose of having Vancian magic in the first place...) doesn't mean there's something fundamentally wrong with the mechanical concept.

 

I mean I've never played a game where it was implemented well, but make sure to tell me if such a game ever exists. As far as I can see it, it is a fundamentally flawed concept (at least in video games, which makes sense since it was a mechanic built for tabletop) because no matter what you do, there's a problem with it.

 

- If you create a vancian system where the player has, without exception, a chance to rest at any point of the game (even if it requires tedious backtracking), then it inherently has no purpose because if the player ever runs into any difficulty, they can just spam everything and than take advantage of that resting mechanic.

- If you create a vancian system which flat out denies the play from resting after amount of times rested, then you will eventually create a situation in which it becomes literally impossible for a player to complete the game (opening up the potential to flat out break their saves completely if they aren't diligent).

 

Modern game design philosophy finds extreme distaste in both outcomes. The first outcome encourages players to intentionally bore themselves to death in order to complete the game if they aren't very good at it (which is what happened at POE1's higher difficulty levels, and why they removed the concept of resting supplies), and the second can create customers who will never touch your product again. Neither are very great outcomes, especially because any vancian system naturally results in combat which is not consistently engaging for anyone. Because, well, that's kind of the whole point of vancian magic in the first place.

 

PS: While you may consider Pillars 1 to have a "poor" implementation of the vancian system, you should realize that no modern game with any significant budget would probably ever be designed with what you consider a "good" implementation of a vancian system. Pillars 1 was intentionally designed to get away from extremely tedious rest design that plagued Baldur's Gate in particular. That 100% encounter rate just encourages players to run back into town any given time they run into trouble, and that's incredibly tedious when you also consider you might encounter enemies on the road as well. And in the end, the only thing all of that did is waste your time. It didn't challenge your ingenuity at all, it just tested your patience for running back and forth until eventually you trapped yourself in an inescapable situation forcing you to load two hours back to a different save. And in Pillars 1, patience would wear away even more quickly because of the extremely lengthy loading screens. If you're expecting Obsidian to step back into that place because you think all of that is fun for some reason, have I got some bad news for you buddy... that type of game design would severely restrict their audience for no real reason. The type of people who enjoy that type of gameplay are far outnumbered by those who wouldn't, and so in the end even if modern CRPGs did stick to a vancian system it would always be too milquetoast for your taste anyways.

 

Most fights in Pillars are over before you exhaust your spell list BECAUSE IT'S A VANCIAN MAGIC GAME AND YOU ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE USING ALL OF YOUR SPELLS IN A SINGLE ENCOUNTER, unless maybe it's a boss fight or you're picking a fight with something way out of your league.

 

Yes, I know, and that's boring. Because in essence you are being forced to play a combat system where you essentially only have access to two or three things you can do with any given character. And all of those things are straightforward and uninteractive. Most combat encounters are challenging you to be in any way thoughtful or tactical, clicking on something and waiting for it to die is not a complex strategy. Strategy is naturally limited by the number of options you are given just as it is limited by the complexity of the environment or strength of the enemies.

 

I have no goddamn clue how you can possibly accuse Pillars of being more spammy than Deadfire despite Deadfire being designed from the ground up to have you rattle off all of your spells in every single ****ing encounter while Pillars at least in theory was designed around you needing to make all of your spells last as many encounters as possible since you didn't get them back between fights and resting was, in theory, limited.

 

I'm not really surprised you can't detect nuance over your own screaming and cursing, so I'm not going to accuse you of mischaracterizing my argument because it's quite clear you didn't understand it. Instead, I'm going to try and make this really simple for you.

 

In Pillars 2, when wizard cast spell, it takes a while before it go boom. Plus, any spell that strong can only go boom maybe twice. And you can easily be interrupted unless you have concentration.

 

In Pillars 1, when wizard cast spell, it go boom right away. And it can go boom again right after recovery. Also, you can make it go boom 10+ times.

 

Therefore, when you are using magic, Pillars 1 is more friendly to mindlessly spamming it, whereas using it in Deadfire requires some actual thought on the part of the player.

 

Do you get it now?

 

Thanks for mentioning it.

 

No problem, not sure if it works on the current patch or not though.

Edited July 22, 2018 by Novem

[PizzaSHARK]

 

I must admit the more i play deadfire the more i wish they had left the casting and rest system alone and kept it more like the first game.

 

What i cant figure out is what positives they actually achieved by nerfing all casters to only 2 spells per level per fight. I honestly have no idea.

 

What i have noticed is that casters have become far less flexible with very severe limitations in battle. In the first game my casters where constantly changing tactics to suit different encounters now in deadfire they seem to be casting the same spells over and over and over and over every fight.

 

Also why do only wizards get grimoires to help shuffle spells around? What happened to priests and druids? Did obsidian forget about them or something? I dont understand how one caster class could have this huge benefit and all the other classes simply are gimped. It could be argued that the druid gets spiritshift to compensate but the priest gets absolutely nothing of any value.

While I'm sure everything to be said has been said already, I'll throw my hat into the ring:

 

A) multiclass. Pretty sure it's basically impossible to balance spellcaster multis around 28 spells per rest.

 

B) The vancian system didn't really sit well with POE's discrete combat encounters. In BG2 your spells have varying durations outside combat and you need specific spells prepared for specific things. Invisibility/Stoneskin/Strength have huge durations outside combat, summons can be pre-cast, you have raise dead spells so it's not the end of the world if a character dies on you, you're often balancing your damage spells against having something like Knock available. In POE because your spells aren't specifically prepared and are all in-combat only it doesn't really make so much sense. Also there are basically no limitations for item availability.

 

C) non-caster per rest options were fairly awful because you were deciding whether to take an ability based on whether you wanted to rest a minimum of twice per map in order to use it once per fight, which often involved laborious backtracking. I don't think this was a problem for wizards or druids because you have twenty six other spells per day you can use but for Rogues it meant things like Finishing Blow were just a lot of work to pick and get any use out of.

 

D) It wasn't remotely hard to go into every really tough fight in Pillars 1 with Dragon Meat Dish bonuses, a good resting bonus, fully rested & with a bunch of consumables in place. It was fairly rare that you had to actually compromise on what spells you were using due to Vancian limitations.

That said, I think I liked the caster balance a little more in POE 1 but it was changed for broadly reasonable reasons and the multiclass options in particular make it wholly worthwhile. I think specific balance concerns with the Priest and Druid spell pool or Cipher resource balance are largely separate from the rest changes.

- Multiclassing works fine in d20 systems. Spell level progression and number of spell slots are tied to class levels. If you're multiclassing Fighter/Wizard, you will have fewer spells and progress in spell level much slower than a pure Wizard (based on when you take Fighter levels instead), but you'll have more HP, have the bonus combat feats, better accuracy, the proficiencies, etc from the Fighter levels. In practice, though, it's almost never worth sacrificing caster levels and progression for being a half-assed martial class unless it's via a purpose-built class (like Pathfinder's Magus, for example.)

 

- In a Vancian system you would likely not attune Knock or similar spells, you'd just have scrolls or a wand; spell slots are typically dedicated to spells that have the most general-purpose use, while specialized spells are usually kept as consumables. You're right, though: Pillars doesn't feature any sort of out-of-combat spellcasting so it's just one more reason the Vancian system probably wasn't the best choice for what they were trying to do in the first place.

 

- Per-rest abilities on martials just doesn't make any damn sense, honestly. Or, at least, not as it was presented. Pathfinder's optional Combat Stamina rules (where the character has a pool of Stamina, determined by base attack value and Constitution modifier) and similar systems make a hell of a lot more sense. You have 20 stamina, this skill costs 3 and this skill costs 5 and that skill costs 15, pick and choose to use them however you'd like, and you only recover stamina pool by resting. I'm a big fan of 5E's resting rules mixed with systems like this, it's much more flexible than Pathfinder and 3.5E's "all or nothing" resting concept.

 

- Yeah, Pillars and Deadfire (as well as the IE games) had serious balance/design problems. I don't know why, but it's like they built the games around players using the honor system or something... you can totally break the game by doing these simple things but we're going to trust you not to do them. At least the IE games had technological limitations to work with and Pillars they had to basically create the functional parts of the game engine from scratch. No such limitations were in place for Deadfire, as far as I'm aware.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Amentep
Personal argument removed

[tinysalamander]

- Multiclassing works fine in d20 systems.  Spell level progression and number of spell slots are tied to class levels.  If you're multiclassing Fighter/Wizard, you will have fewer spells and progress in spell level much slower than a pure Wizard (based on when you take Fighter levels instead), but you'll have more HP, have the bonus combat feats, better accuracy, the proficiencies, etc from the Fighter levels.  In practice, though, it's almost never worth sacrificing caster levels and progression for being a half-assed martial class unless it's via a purpose-built class (like Pathfinder's Magus, for example.)

Doesn't that mean it's actully not working fine?

 

[shameless RoC's Legend ad here]

[Manveru123]

It does, in BG2 a Fighter/Mage eventually turned out to be an improvement over single class Fighter in every way. You basically had a Fighter who can buff himself to immortality and still do huge damage with hasted weapon swings. And if you wanted to powergame a bit, and went dual class instead, after mastering the weapon on Fighter levels.. oh boiiiiii **** just explodes.