Alternative effect for "Brilliant"

[Bosmer]

18 minutes ago, Exanos said:

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.

 

 

I think Elric has introduced some changes along these lines in his mod. And I definitely like the idea of more resource generation without brilliant, but I feel these per-kill-resources have the strongest impact in battles where they might not be needed (with many trash-mobs) and they might foster cheesy kill-your-summons strategies (not tested).

I follow the different ideas in this thread with great interest, but there seems to be a lot of differing opinions on the real problem that brilliant is causing to the game. Is the problem that brilliant is by far the strongest inspiration or more generally that resources can be regenerated? Or that they can be regenerated so easily (tactician / cipher)? Or that only a few items / classes allow to do so?

Personally, I feel Obsidian would have had a far easier time to balance things with a hard cap on the number of resources in each encounter. In combat I like to face meaningful decisions on the optimal actions of my characters and limited resources are one straight forward way to allow this.

[Exanos]

7 minutes ago, Bosmer said:

I think Elric has introduced some changes along these lines in his mod. And I definitely like the idea of more resource generation without brilliant, but I feel these per-kill-resources have the strongest impact in battles where they might not be needed (with many trash-mobs) and they might foster cheesy kill-your-summons strategies (not tested).

I follow the different ideas in this thread with great interest, but there seems to be a lot of differing opinions on the real problem that brilliant is causing to the game. Is the problem that brilliant is by far the strongest inspiration or more generally that resources can be regenerated? Or that they can be regenerated so easily (tactician / cipher)? Or that only a few items / classes allow to do so?

Personally, I feel Obsidian would have had a far easier time to balance things with a hard cap on the number of resources in each encounter. In combat I like to face meaningful decisions on the optimal actions of my characters and limited resources are one straight forward way to allow this.

Getting ressource back on trash mob should not lead to a positive income in the long run (you usualy use ressource for securing the kill + ressource along that for movement/defense/buff/debuff/etc...) it should just make your ressource pool more durable. 

Biggest issue of brilliant  is with caster for PL8-9 spells (->too powerfull)  and some specifics spells (salvation of time, barring death door, wall of draining mostly -> too cheesy). Remove this and it's not an overpowered inspiration anymore (still very good). 

I totally agree with you about meaningful decision and that limited ressource allow that. Honestly, except for ultimate run or some non optimized run (without a party for ex), you don't need to cast it once to finish the game. In 90% of my fight (except boss fights), the fight is over in less than 20sec and i still have at least 60% of my ressource pool (including spells) full (except my arcana archer i admit, she end fight at 0 but take half the ennemy team with it :D), without the need for empower. 

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Bosmer said:

I think Elric has introduced some changes along these lines in his mod. And I definitely like the idea of more resource generation without brilliant, but I feel these per-kill-resources have the strongest impact in battles where they might not be needed (with many trash-mobs) and they might foster cheesy kill-your-summons strategies (not tested).

Indeed, with my mod, all Single Classes martials have some abilities to regain ressources (some had already before the mod)

 

That's only true for SC martials and that's intentional.

1 hour ago, Bosmer said:

Personally, I feel Obsidian would have had a far easier time to balance things with a hard cap on the number of resources in each encounter. In combat I like to face meaningful decisions on the optimal actions of my characters and limited resources are one straight forward way to allow this.

Say that to the guys who designed Megabosses

[MaxQuest]

  

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

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. 

The idea itself is nice. But it is unclear if let's say at 12th second, character restores only 1 spell usage of PL-2; or also 1 spell usage of PL-1. (and so on for each 6*n second)

Also in order to restore 1 spellusage of rank-9, character would need to upkeep Brilliant for 54 seconds straight without resetting it.

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

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...

I was thinking about SC restoring up to rank 3, 6, 9 on each tick.

And MC restoring up to rank 3, 5, 7 on each tick.

But this really complicates things; so probably will have to discard such separation.

 

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Druids should get their Spiritshift use refunded!

That be great, but I also don't know how to implement this.

 

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

All classes need some pre-PL8 form of resource regeneration. 

Yes!

And a rank-8 upgrade wouldn't hurt, in case MC gets an upper hand.

 

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

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.  

Yes!

And ranger.

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

So the resource regeneration of the "non-replenishers" must either come with a downside or a rather difficult prerequisite 

Yes!

But just want to accentuate: that it also should not be abusable, like in case of onKill resource regeneration coupled with killing own skellie summons.

 

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

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 really like your fighter idea with attack resolution conversion  But don't see how to implement it yet...

Regarding paladins and getting zeal on knockdown: if it gives 3 zeal, it can be abused with Providence (+consumables that remove injuries).

Regarding barb and getting rage when getting hit while bloodied or lower: I think this is too strong, and can cause rage overflow.

Regarding rogues: it's easy to land multiple afflictions in short amount of time; so it also looks too strong.

-----

I will propose a few alternative ideas:

Barbarian:

• add "?" rank-4 talent: gain 1 rage and +20% Action Speed for 5s, when Critically hit (by enemies) while bloodied; but lose 1 rage when Critically hit (by enemies) while Near Death 

Fighter:

• still thinking

Paladin:

• still thinking; but would like something that restores zeal if he does a good supporting job

Ranger:

• add "Hunting Tactics" rank-4 talent: critical hits by Animal Companion (vs enemies) have 50% chance to restore 1 Bond to the ranger
• add "Cull the weak" rank-8 talent: ranger and Animal Companion get +20% hit-to-crit vs afflicted enemies

Rogue:

• add "Underhand Strikes" rank-4 talent: if you haven't taken any damage in the last 8s, your critical strikes with melee weapons against enemies have 50% chance to restore 1 guile to you
• (and there is no need for rank-8 co-talent, since there is Gambit)

Whatcha think?

 

 

[Boeroer]

Oops, I completely forgot Ranger.

[Jayd]

Glad to see the discussion has moved towards more varied ways to regain resources. Only trouble with adding new talents is that they'll become "must-picks", which constrains building. You can argue that, if Brilliant is nerfed, this is the tradeoff to not needing a Cipher in every comp if you want to try hard. But I do think it's most elegant if you can add resource regen to existing talents - especially ones that people were likely to choose anyway - so that it feels like an added dynamic and not like yet another constraint on building your characters.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Jayd

[Boeroer]

They could be made PL-0-autopicks - like all the subclass passives or Carnage, Transcendent Suffering, Wound Trait, Soul Whip, Constant Recovery and so on. That way they could be seen as a passive that just comes with the respective resource pool. No "must pick" problem then.  

[Phenomenum]

9 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

They could be made PL-0-autopicks - like all the subclass passives or Carnage, Transcendent Suffering, Wound Trait, Soul Whip, Constant Recovery and so on. That way they could be seen as a passive that just comes with the respective resource pool. No "must pick" problem then.  

Maybe just increase max Power Pool and spell usages? No "must pick" problem then, no problem with resourses at all, case closed. Huh?

[Elric Galad]

I don't say it won't be an interesting design.

But if all martials are tweaked into alternative Cipher/monk/chanter it would take the class design very far from its original form. It will reduce the uniqueness of infinite ressource classes.

That said, it may be worth it.

But I won't see it as a simple improvement of the current ruleset.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

That's why I said:
 

me said:

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.

Edited February 28, 2021 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

13 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

  

I will propose a few alternative ideas:

Barbarian:

• add "?" rank-4 talent: gain 1 rage and +20% Action Speed for 5s, when Critically hit (by enemies) while bloodied; but lose 1 rage when Critically hit (by enemies) while Near Death 

On the Abilities themselves (leaving apart the question of refunding ressources for martial as a general principle) :

I think this one is a bit complicated, and can unplayable in the heat of battle. The fact that it can be very detrimental, especially for Death Godlikes, does worry me a bit.

Quote

Ranger:

• add "Hunting Tactics" rank-4 talent: critical hits by Animal Companion (vs enemies) have 50% chance to restore 1 Bond to the ranger

Basically that's the right thing to do if anything is done. You know my technical concerns about its implementation  
Not sure about the values, but that's easy to tune.

Quote

• add "Cull the weak" rank-8 talent: ranger and Animal Companion get +20% hit-to-crit vs afflicted enemies

Good complement for the first.

Quote

Rogue:

• add "Underhand Strikes" rank-4 talent: if you haven't taken any damage in the last 8s, your critical strikes with melee weapons against enemies have 50% chance to restore 1 guile to you

Similarly as Ranger's one, the value is easy to tune.
Restricting it to Melee is a concern, I feel it is very limitating for Ranged Rogue. Maybe require a Sniper Alternative, such as %Crit against target above 75% health.
But restricting to Melee reduces my concern about multi-hit weapons.

Quote

• (and there is no need for rank-8 co-talent, since there is Gambit)

And Vanishing Strikes (especially with Assassin).

Edited March 1, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Phenomenum]

Too many new talents, while talent points still the same number. Why not to add these effects to existing talents?

[Boeroer]

But why not make them pl-0-auto-picks like Constant Recovery etc?

Same ability points as before - same number of abilities to pick from as before. Nothing would change on that part.

You could even attach those effects to one of the auto-abilites every class gets anyway: like Carnage, Constant Recovery, Sneak Attack, Animal Companion. So you wouldn't even have to add an additional icon (but no problem to create new ones you know ). 

Just make sure the effect is not too strong and make it so that the passive fits the resource pool - so that it's eqasy to believe that it's an integral part of it. 

Like every Fighter gets a [example] 10% chance to gain 1 Discipline when he converts an attack up or down [/example].
Every Ranger gains 1 Bond [example] when her/his AC kills an enemy [/example]
Every Barbarian gains 1 Rage [example] when he's receiving a crit while Bloodied [/example]
Every Rogue has a [example] 5% chance to gain 1 Guile when he/she applies an affliction [/example]
Every Paladin gets [example] 2 Zeal if he gets knocked out [/example]

Don't get hung up on the [examples] - they are just that. Could also imagine Barbs have a 5% chance to gain 1 Rage when hitting sombody with Carnage, Rangers get a 2% chance to gain 1 Bond if their AC gets hit or whatever. Something that fits and makes sense from a mechanical point of view, too. 

Wouldn't that be the easiest and most straightforward solution that's also the most fair? 

The effects should be weak enough that they almost make no difference in the usual fights which don't last that long - but be useful in those loooong fights were currently all classes with replenishment and/or Brillant have an overwhelming advantage. 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

Another possible Route would be to have a couple more classes apart Cipher able to ressource ressources to others.

The obvious one is SC Chanter with his Tier IX "His Heart...". It can be buffed a bit.

But what about some other traditional supporting classes or subclasses such as Paladin or even Fury Shaper ?
The tricky part would be : "how classes with finite ressources can help other classes with providing ressources ?"
And I don't see Monk giving ressources to other from his generated wounds.

It would require less changes than providing each individual class a mean to restore ressources. Just like a couple new effects.
And it would favor Party Synergies.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

I can totally see Monks do that. Call it "Shared Agony" or whatever and you're set.
But that would slightly push the Monk into a support role - don't know if that's good or bad tbh.

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I can totally see Monks do that. Call it "Shared Agony" or whatever and you're set.
But that would slightly push the Monk into a support role - don't know if that's good or bad tbh.

Could be with a new dedicated subclass.
I'm not very fond of adding new subclasses, but it could be an option to address a very specific flaw of the overall class balance.

Yet another approach could be also through "potion of mana" or whatever they could be called.

Someone has opened the brainstorming window, so I run free now  

Edited March 1, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I can totally see Monks do that. Call it "Shared Agony" or whatever and you're set.

What about Penitent's Massage which gives back ressources when hitting allies with monk's fists ?

[Boeroer]

And the Rogue kicks a party member in the butt and calls it "Striking Idea"? Paladin's giving out some  "Backslaps" and Barb is doing "Whooping Screams". Let's not forget the Ranger who's putting a party member "Back on Track".

Fighters just get a boring "Allies Assemble!" though...

Edited March 1, 2021 by Boeroer

[Phenomenum]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

But why not make them pl-0-auto-picks like Constant Recovery etc?

Because it's basically the same if we simply increase resource pool.

You say about lack of resources for certain classes – you can solve this by 2 ways: adding base effects to regenerate resources, or adding resources directly trough resource pool adjustment.

________________________________________________

If you ask me, i totally don't understand all proposals about resources regen. We have a small numbers of fights in whole game, in which this is really matter – so you want to ruin all classes balance, all resources management to make several fights more comfortable?!

I understand that some classes is lack resources in long fights, but tell me number of those fights – 4, 5, 10?

I don't see problem with resourcea at all, even with Woedica challenge game is doable.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Phenomenum

[Elric Galad]

9 minutes ago, Phenomenum said:

If you ask me, i totally don't understand all proposals about resources regen. We have a small numbers of fights in whole game, in which this is really matter – so you want to ruin all classes balance, all resources management to make several fights more comfortable?!

I can relate with this.
The only issue I see with all this is that the current system sort of force you to take a Cipher just to handle these particular fights (I mean, I'm not speaking about the minority of players who can solo Megabosses etc...)

[Phenomenum]

4 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

The only issue I see with all this is that the current system sort of force you to take a Cipher just to handle these particular fights

Indeed. But this is only several fights – less than 0,5 % of all fights in a game. End now i see how a several highly expirienced players want to adjust class balance to these "less than 0,5%" fights.

Not a smart move in my opinion.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Phenomenum

[Elric Galad]

19 minutes ago, Phenomenum said:

Indeed. But this is only several fights – less than 0,5 % of all fights in a game. End now i see how a several highly expirienced players want to adjust class balance to these "less than 0,5%" fights.

Not a smart move in my opinion.

The thing is that these 0,5% of fights are likely to be the hardest ones, so you have to keep them in mind when building a party.
Most players are completionnists, and don't like the idea of facing a brick wall at some point.

There is arguably not a single ability in the game that is harder to replace than Ancestor's Memory. No class has equivalent except Tier IX "His Heart did feel..." which is a tweak away from being a good substitute.

As you said, I really don't like the idea of changing the fundamentals of class balance because of 0,5% of the fights, but I think a couple more options wouldn't hurt.

Edited March 1, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Phenomenum]

4 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

a couple more options wouldn't hurt.

A couple. Bot don't "let's add another resources regen for all classes"

[Phenomenum]

Of course, if you go multi, some classes can't regen - Rogue for example. But i strongly opposed to add new abilities, to add some base class abilities, and to add less than rank 6-7 regen. I don't understand @MaxQuest plans to add regen on rank 4 abilities – on these levels player simply don't need resources regen (unless you plan to go for SSS DLC or Megabosses on lvl 7-10, which will be a suicide anyway).

For Rogue it maybe additional effect for Deadblows (rank 7 passive), which can refund Guile with some chance (25%, 33%, 50%) on kill ENEMY from invisibility (but keep in mind that SC can combine this with Gambit).

For Ranger we can modify Survival of the Fittest: +10 Accuracy against < 50% health targets, N% chance to restore 1 Bond with Animal Companion Crits against < 50% health targets)

 

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by Phenomenum

[Powerotti]

So what about trinkets? Maybe items with resource regeneration effects would be better choice, than modifying abilities?