Alternative effect for "Brilliant"

[Phenomenum]

Have you any consensus about what is main vanilla Brilliant problem?

[Elric Galad]

10 hours ago, Phenomenum said:

Have you any consensus about what is main vanilla Brilliant problem?

I'm trying an honest report hereafter :

 

I think there is a clear consensus about Brilliant being too strong for casters. 6s tick restoring tier 9 is too much.

 

1) I think a majority agrees that having not all ticks restoring tier 9 would be good (% chance, cycling, whatever).

A minority thinks that capping it at Tier 3 would be a good solution, but I think it is a bit too harsh for a consensus (even if it is current BPM solution).

Note that an actual solution would have to work around technical constraints.

 

2) Everyone agrees that Brilliant is significantly stronger than other Tier 3. I don't think there is a consensus to consider it as a problem.

But that's why other solutions are being suggested.

 

3) I think there is consensus about Brilliant having OP combo with some spells : Barring Death Door, Unbending, Salvation of Time, Wall of Draining...

I think this should be addressed by tweaking these spells. BPM does it for SoT and WoD.

I don't think there is a consensus about nerfing Brilliant directly because of these spells.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

The first problem for me is that casters profit way more from it than other classes. 

The second problem (that is connected to the first) is that Brilliant lets you regain uses of Wall of Draining and Salvation of Time which both can be used to prolong Brilliant again - which is an OP cycle. 

I guess we all agree on that basically. Now there's just the question how to solve this.

Anyway: my question regarding "foe-only" Brilliant was answered. So thanks all. 

 

[Elric Galad]

11 hours ago, Noqn said:

No, there sadly is no such effect.

Edit: after some more thinking, I'm not going to try to make something out of this. It would be insanely convoluted or most likely impossible to implement for abilities that generate continuous attacks, such as beams or pulsing AoEs. I love the concept of anti-confusion, but @Elric Galad's current solution is already superb and not to mention infinitely cleaner implemented, so I feel like this is something I'd only do for the technical challenge.

My current solution is probably to be improved a bit, although I think simple impmentation should always been the way to go. There is way too much hidden consequences when using unusual ways. 

That said, if you really want to do such a thing, I would suggest creating a stand-alone mod with a high level new passive (or spell ???) providing this effect. It would certainly be fun to have around in the modding sphere. But it might be too much work so do as you please !

[Phenomenum]

Okay, Thank you. So the Question: IF i'll make separate ticks for casters and non-casters (for example, 6 sec. for non-casters and 9 sec. for casters)?

Regarding SoT. I think we have a working solution: we add a timer for SoT (20-30 sec., for example) and within this time duration SoT are not applicable for characters, who already have this effect - so you can't spam it. To compansate this, we can add a PL scaling to Beneficial Effects Duration Adj: basically, lvl 20 priest with Prestige and Xoti lantern will add 13 sec. duration).
I tested it yesterday - works as intended.

Of course, we have a BPM-version, but we tryin' to bring another solution, which will be close as possible to original ability.

Thoughts?

Edited February 25, 2021 by Phenomenum

[Elric Galad]

22 minutes ago, Phenomenum said:

Okay, Thank you. So the Question: IF i'll make separate ticks for casters and non-casters (for example, 6 sec. for non-casters and 9 sec. for casters)?

9s for casters wouldn't be my solution of choice. Still too strong with high level spells. And too defavorable for low level spell.
Many people, including @MaxQuesthave been thinking that having some tick capped and some other non capped, based on % chance or cycle would fit.

Currently, I'm leaning to :
- 6s tick +1 ressource up to Tier 3
- 18s tick +1 ressource up to Tier 9 (cumulative with previous one happening at 18s)
- No effect on initial tick (which would solve Tactician rebooting Brilliant to gain ressource faster) to compensate a bit for extra ressources generated this way.

This would be probably easy to implement (so more likely to be bug-free). I'm not 100% sure how the cumulative part at 18s would work.

There might be other solutions, just read the technical limitations I've found (there might be work around, but they won't be trivial) :

Alternative effect for "Brilliant" - Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

 

Quote

Regarding SoT. I think we have a working solution: we add a timer for SoT (20-30 sec., for example) and within this time duration SoT are not applicable for characters, who already have this effect - so you can't spam it.
I tested it yesterday - works as intended.

Thoughts?

My version of SoT addresses it. The effect is basically to halve buff ellapsing speed instead of adding a flat 10s.
So no effect duration can be more than doubled.
I think it is quite clean.
There might be other solutions, but I would probably still prefer mine, unless somebody finds an issue with it.

I don't particularly like the "timer" part of your solution. But if it works, I don't see an issue with it. I just prefer mine

Edited February 25, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Phenomenum]

8 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

9s for casters wouldn't be my solution of choice. Still too strong with high level spells.

Ok, we can additionally restrict spell level to *whatever*

9 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Currently, I'm leaning to :
- 6s tick +1 ressource up to Tier 3
- 18s tick +1 ressource up to Tier 9 (cumulative with previous one happening at 18s)

I'm talking about two separate non-cumulative effects for casters and non-casters.

11 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

My version of SoT addresses it.

I know. I'm trying to get some feedback about other approach. 

[Elric Galad]

9 minutes ago, Phenomenum said:

Ok, we can additionally restrict spell level to *whatever*

I'm talking about two separate non-cumulative effects for casters and non-casters.

I know it is possible. But I was following another approach. (and I answered about what I thought about your suggestions). Edit :

"9s for casters wouldn't be my solution of choice. Still too strong with high level spells. And too defavorable for low level spell."

 

 

Quote

I know. I'm trying to get some feedback about other approach. 

Yup, I know that you edited your answer. I edited mine to give my feedback :

24 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

I don't particularly like the "timer" part of your solution. But if it works, I don't see an issue with it. I just prefer mine

 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Jayd]

Sorry if this has been discussed already, but what about providing resources only on the initital application of Brilliant and not per tick through its duration? Like 2-3 pool points and/or 2-3 random spells? That way you can't get more resources by extending the effect (still get INT and power level). You have to re-apply Brilliant every time you want to get new resources (this might mean that any existing Brilliant buff would need to expire?).

[Phenomenum]

47 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Yup, I know that you edited your answer. I edited mine to give my feedback

To many "You". I know that you already modded these abilities, i know you happy with that and so on. But i want to try a different approach and want to listen OTHER people - not just how you already did everything. 

[Phenomenum]

1 minute ago, Jayd said:

but what about providing resources only on the initital application of Brilliant and not per tick through its duration? Like 2-3 pool points and/or 2-3 random spells? That way you can't get more resources by extending the effect (still get INT and power level). You have to re-apply Brilliant every time you want to get new resources (this might mean that any existing Brilliant buff would need to expire?).

Yes, that a good idea, but it have one flaw - in this variant Brilliant effect can't scale with INT. It will be just a flat bonus. Not sure this is good.

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Phenomenum said:

To many "You". I know that you already modded these abilities, i know you happy with that and so on. But i want to try a different approach and want to listen OTHER people - not just how you already did everything. 

Yup, sorry about that. I gotta wait a bit and listen to what other say  

I will just give purely technical advice and stop talking about my version of things for a while   

1 hour ago, Jayd said:

Sorry if this has been discussed already, but what about providing resources only on the initital application of Brilliant and not per tick through its duration? Like 2-3 pool points and/or 2-3 random spells? That way you can't get more resources by extending the effect (still get INT and power level). You have to re-apply Brilliant every time you want to get new resources (this might mean that any existing Brilliant buff would need to expire?).

Will be an issue with Tactician who can "reboot himself".

The "Add n ressources" give back n spell from the same spell Tier. So if you add 3 ressources, you will be capped. 

Also I've experimentated this a bit for Ancestor's memory : I remember adding several duplicated "add 1 ressource" status, but somehow they conflicted and only added 1 ressource.

[Boeroer]

4 hours ago, Jayd said:

Sorry if this has been discussed already, but what about providing resources only on the initital application of Brilliant and not per tick through its duration? Like 2-3 pool points and/or 2-3 random spells? That way you can't get more resources by extending the effect (still get INT and power level). You have to re-apply Brilliant every time you want to get new resources (this might mean that any existing Brilliant buff would need to expire?).

I like that as a general idea. It solves more problems than it creates I think. The rest of the Brillant buff (+1 PL, +5 INT) would still apply for the whole duration. But since ths will male Brilliant weaker I would give +3 PL instead of +1. Also because the RES-afflictions cause a -3 PL malus so the number 3 doesn't seem too outlandish.

Tactician: maybe one can make it so that a new appliance of Brilliant only prolongs the duration of an existing Brilliant inspiration - and then gives you no resources. Only if you are not Brilliant already you'll get the resources/spells. Sure, one can try to get Brilliant, then unflank an enemy -> Brilliant stops - reflank -> Brilliant again... but it would be a lot of hassle and maybe that's enough already? 

Edited February 25, 2021 by Boeroer

[SArgentus]

If the Tactician bonus was set to a short Briliant buff (6 secs?) that doesn't get cleared by the requirements no longer being fulfilled, the cheese should no longer be possible.

[Phenomenum]

Or if we set a short cooldown (a some sort of immunity when effect is cleared), when Brilliant can't be applicated to target.

@Boeroer i'd like to hear your opinion, regarding various SoT variants (because it connected to Brilliant problem).

Edited February 25, 2021 by Phenomenum

[SArgentus]

6 minutes ago, Phenomenum said:

Or if we set a short cooldown (a some sort of immunity when effect is cleared), when Brilliant can't be applicated to target

I've played around quite a bit with cooldown effects back when I wanted to expand on the Black Jacket subclass - it can work, but it's either very obscure to the player or very ugly in the UI - but by any means, it's worth trying multiple fixes to see how it behaves

[Phenomenum]

3 minutes ago, SArgentus said:

I've played around quite a bit with cooldown effects back when I wanted to expand on the Black Jacket subclass - it can work, but it's either very obscure to the player or very ugly in the UI - but by any means, it's worth trying multiple fixes to see how it behaves

Yes, it is...

[Boeroer]

25 minutes ago, Phenomenum said:

Or if we set a short cooldown (a some sort of immunity when effect is cleared), when Brilliant can't be applicated to target.

@Boeroer i'd like to hear your opinion, regarding various SoT variants (because it connected to Brilliant problem).

I will always oppose cooldowns. They are unelegant imo and also require additional attention.

[Phenomenum]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I will always oppose cooldowns. They are unelegant imo and also require additional attention.

Ok, i get it.

[MaxQuest]

  

On 2/25/2021 at 10:17 AM, Boeroer said:

The first problem for me is that casters profit way more from it than other classes. 

The second problem (that is connected to the first) is that Brilliant lets you regain uses of Wall of Draining and Salvation of Time which both can be used to prolong Brilliant again - which is an OP cycle. 

That's a quite laconic and exact way to put it

 

On 2/25/2021 at 5:41 PM, Boeroer said:

Sure, one can try to get Brilliant, then unflank an enemy -> Brilliant stops - reflank -> Brilliant again... but it would be a lot of hassle and maybe that's enough already? 

That's exactly what I was thinking when planning my next party 2 months ago. One ascendant and four tacticians (one multi-classing with priest).

Upkeeped BDD/Unbending/Driving Echoes/and other sugar; plus dedicated flanker/unflaker that can re-trigger Brilliant:

• via disengaging/reengaging (with Nomad's Brigandine)
• via being flanked by enemies (or using blunderbuss modal) and switching Squid's Grasp back and forth

and in case of boss fights quickly repeat it ~10 times once in 30s; because one resource in 6s, is too slow when there is enough + action speed - recovery time)

 

By the time I finished planning I felt soo dirty  

And no longer felt the motivation to play, because why bother when infinite BDD, or overhealing Unbending makes the party unkillable. You've already won.

And at the same time, I didn't want to take another party, because everything else I was coming up with, was strictly subpar.

That's when I started to think about changes to BDD/SoT/WoD/Unbending/Blade Cascade/etc, and looking for ideas)

 

On 2/25/2021 at 10:17 AM, Boeroer said:

I guess we all agree on that basically. Now there's just the question how to solve this.

Since a balanced solution that would feel good for everyone and is also easy to explain/describe and implement is not that obvious, I think one approach could be by starting with a list of what we want to achieve, keep or change.

For example:

• I'd like wizard/druid/priest to benefit a bit less from Brilliant, since the current edge case of getting a rank-9 spellusage versus 1 guile/zeal/discipline is too much.
• I'd like it to not be possible to cast more than 4 rank-9 spells in 1 minute. Or even 2..3 per minute on average in the long fight. And at the same time I don't want to be hard limited to just 2-3 of them per combat.
• I'd like to keep resource regeneration, since I like using abilities; and don't like watching my characters auto-attacking. 
• I'd like to have the dilemma of: do I make my party [sturdy but slower] or [faster but more fragile]; instead of [faster but more fragile; and running faster out of resources after which becoming even more fragile]
• I'd like upkeeping BDD 24/7 to not be possible;
• But at the same time I don't want to limit priests to just 2 BDD casts per combat; I think upkeeping BDD on 2-3 party members for 50% of combat (for medium and hard fights) is a reasonable upper limit
• I'd like upkeeping very high defenses 24/7 to not be possible; unless you give up enough acc/dps/penetration.
• I'd like upkeeping Unbending 24/7 to not be as effective. Shorts bursts of 15s hard-to-kill once in 30-60s; or limit it's healing to no more than 50-60% of damage taken
• I'd like upkeeping Blade Cascade for 24/7 to not be possible, since it kills the point of other stuff that decreases recovery-time; and completely removes the speed downsides of heavy armor
• I'd like it to not be possible to keep buffs for over 9000 seconds; since it unbalances the [strong but short] vs [weak but lasting] effects
• I'd like martial classes to have some additional, but x2..x3 weaker AND conditional means to regenerate resources. This will decrease the importance of Brilliant for them. Or will bring their regeneration closer to casters', when used with Brilliant in tandem
• I'd like resource regeneration to be a little bit faster if you really build for that; or invest in high DEX / action speed
• ...

 

Now, what are your likes?

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, MaxQuest said:

• I'd like wizard/druid/priest to benefit a bit less from Brilliant, since the current edge case of getting a rank-9 spellusage versus 1 guile/zeal/discipline is too much.
• I'd like it to not be possible to cast more than 4 rank-9 spells in 1 minute. Or even 2..3 per minute on average in the long fight. And at the same time I don't want to be hard limited to just 2-3 of them per combat.

One idea I had was that the PL of spells or "spell tiers" could determine the rate of regeneration. Let's say the base interval/tick rate is every 6 secs. Then formula could be:
PL * base tick = seconds needed to regenerate spell use. Example: 

• PL-1-spells: 1 * 6sec = regain spell use every 6 secs.
• PL-2-spells: 2 * 6sec = regain spell use every 12 secs
• ...
• PL-9-spells: 9 * 6 sec = regein spell use every 54 secs

One could adjust the base tick rate of course. It would be easy enough to understand and while it's rel. complicated to implement it's not too bad I think. And it balances high power spell regain with low power spell regain. I mean high power abilities cost way more resources than low ones - so regaining resources like Discipline but having to pay more for high power abilities leads to: you can use a LOT of low PL abilites or a few high PL abilities for the Discipline you just regained. Same would be true for casters with the above formula. 

But then there's also the problem of dual caster multiclass: do they regain spells for both classes at the same time? That doesn't sound fair to me. But maybe I can be convinced that it is. Haven't mused about it that much...

Druids should get their Spiritshift use refunded!

I agree to all of the rest but have another comment for this part:
 

1 hour ago, MaxQuest said:

  

• I'd like martial classes to have some additional, but x2..x3 weaker AND conditional means to regenerate resources. This will decrease the importance of Brilliant for them. Or will bring their regeneration closer to casters', when used with Brilliant in tandem

I've said it n the past in some other thread (most likely the CP thread back then):
All classes need some pre-PL8 form of resource regeneration.
Of course: Not nearly as potent as Monk, Chanter and Cipher though - because classes with fixed resources usually have abilites that are more impactful or have no "downside". The monk has to suffer damage in order to gain wounds (hurts your health) and the cipher who has to deal damage in order to get focus (hurts your action economy). The Chanter has to wait and castingg an invocation actually stops the resource generattion.
So the resource regeneration of the "non-replenishers" must either come with a downside or a rather difficult prerequisite (see Fighter's variant: receiving crits in order to get Discipline back or Paladin's/Barb's variant: kill an enemy to potentially gain Zeal/Rage) or be quite slow/have low chance of happening.
The passives that can replenish resources for those classes that are currently in place (Fighter, Paladin, Barb, Rogue has none besides the kind-of refund via Gambit) come at very high levels. I would prefer a passive that fits the class resource and comes earlier than that.
I once suggested that Rogues could have a passive that gives a chance to regain Guile if they hit with an affliction for example. The Barb could have a chance to regain Rage when she/he gets hit while Blooded or lower. Fighters might have a chance to regain Discipline when they convert enemies' attacks down or their own attacks up. Paladins (who already have two sources of regaining zeal) could get some Zeal once they get knocked out - so reviving them would be a priority (road to Death Guard, eh?  ). But thoseare just ideas that are open to discussion of course.
I would give Fighter, Barb, Paladin and Rogue a fitting passive at the same PL (maybe PL 4 or so) that has a fitting name.  

Edited February 28, 2021 by Boeroer

[Phenomenum]

4 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Druids should get their Spiritshift use refunded!

It's not technically available. All i can do is to add mid-level upgrade for druids, that allows 2 spiritshifts per fight (exept shifter subclass of course).
And i remember, that in PoE 1 spiritshift refund with scepter was very cheesy and allows to spiritshift very often.

 

[Boeroer]

Maybe you could create such an ability that adds an additonal shift - and it then only gets added automatically once Brilliant is on (and removed once combat ends)?   

[Phenomenum]

2 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Maybe you could create such an ability that adds an additonal shift - and it then only gets added automatically once Brilliant is on (and removed once combat ends)

Sorry, no.

[Exanos]

47 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I've said it n the past in some other thread (or in this one but a lot of pages ago, don't remember) :
All classes need some pre-PL8 form of resource regeneration.
Of course: Not nearly as potent as Monk and Cipher though - because classes with fixed resources usually have abilites that are more impactful or have no "downside". The monk has to suffer damage in order to gain wounds (hurts your health) and the cipher who has to deal damage in order to get focus (hurts your action economy). The Chanter has to wait and castingg an invocation actually stops the resource generattion.
So the resource regeneration of the "non-replenishers" must either come with a downside or a rather difficult prerequisite (see Fighter's variant: receiving crits in order to get Discipline back or Paladin's/Barb's variant: kill an enemy to potentially gain Zeal/Rage) or be quite slow/have low chance of happening.
The passives that can replenish resources for those classes that are currently in place (Fighter, Paladin, Barb, Rogue has none besides the kind-of refund via Gambit) come at very high levels. I would prefer a passive that fits the class resource and comes earlier than that.
I once suggested that Rogues could have a passive that gives a chance to regain Guile if they hit with an affliction for example. The Barb could have a chance to regain Rage when she/he gets hit while Blooded or lower. Fighters might have a chance to regain Discipline when they convert enemies' attacks down or their own attacks up. Paladins (who already have two sources of regaining zeal) could get some Zeal once they get knocked out - so reviving them would be a priority (road to Death Guard, eh?  ). But thoseare just ideas that are open to discussion of course.
I would give Fighter, Barb, Paladin and Rogue a fitting passive at the same PL (maybe PL 4 or so) that has a fitting name.  

I disagree with the needed pre-lv8 refund ressource abilitie.

I would much prefer brilliant to not restaure ressource, but just give a fair chunk of +PL (universally usefull, no more question about PL9 spell caster unbalance, etc...).

Your ressource pool can easily be played around with :

- empower point restauring half of it;

- item adding +X ressource for a class (gauntlet mostly for fighter & monk + DoC brestplate), or passive with same effect.

To compensate a bit, i would welcome a PL8 passive for fighter ranger and rogue giving ressource back on kill, and for barbarian a tweak for barbarian smash giving back more rage on kill (it will come sooner than PL8 but will be double edge sword : if you miss, it cost, if you kill you gain ).

Spellcaster, when out of ressource can still cast scroll or throw bomb (a buff for explosive would be welcome). No one really use scroll (few exception) cause they are not needed with your actual ressource pool for 96% of the fights.

If you really want a refund ressource abilitie, chanters have one (buff it for +2 ressource, or make it a pl6-7 with 1 ressource back).

edit : gating refund ressource passive at PL8 will make SC more appealing. As multi you have double ressource to play with anyway.

 

 

Edited February 28, 2021 by Exanos