Alternative effect for "Brilliant"

[Noqn]

I apologize to everyone for my inactivity, this week was more eventful than I expected...

On 3/12/2021 at 2:27 PM, MaxQuest said:

In case you need Russian translation here it is:

Fantastic, thanks! You wouldn't happen to have the translation of "Potion of Enlightenment" as well?

On 3/10/2021 at 10:12 PM, Boeroer said:

Hm... what about giving an Empower Point periodically?

I absolutely love the idea of restoring Empower Points, but to do it through a duration-based effect might be the wrong way to do it? Maybe if each character could empower more than once per encounter (and the game was balanced around that fact), but otherwise the effect would only be useful up to a certain amount of ticks for each encounter, which I think should be avoided for an Inspiration.

As a completely separate mechanic, how would you feel about the player passively restoring an Empower Point every Xth encounter?

On 3/12/2021 at 2:27 PM, MaxQuest said:

It feels artificial to me too.

Thus the question: if the resource regeneration would be allowed to go on (so long as there is Brilliant effect), would that be ok? Provided that we would also make changes to SoT, WoD and Shroud of Phantasm.

Cycling Spell Tiers is no doubt the best solution to nerfing Brilliant while still allowing regeneration of high-tier spells, but the question remains if that is desirable. Wizard, Druid and Priests each have many great Spells in PL3 and below, relevant all the way through late-game. Regenerating within that selection is still an extremely strong effect, and still the best Tier 3 inspiration by far. Isn't that enough?

On 3/18/2021 at 7:05 PM, lewis_cb said:

Would people like it if the potion gave a random wound as a drawback?

I really like the idea of Fatigue after the combat encounter. I have a single concern though, that this effect may add a 4th Injury and kill the drinker right after the encounter. We could use an Injury-like effect (like the Sigil Curses) or a hangover/addiction just to make sure that a player doesn't defeat a megaboss only to die from the fatigue injury? But if this is a non-issue then Fatigue would be great, so I'll add it meanwhile.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Noqn

[lewis_cb]

1 hour ago, Noqn said:

As a completely separate mechanic, how would you feel about the player passively restoring an Empower Point every Xth encounter?

I like it! Simple but making the resource management interesting in a no-rest playthough  Would X be high like 6-10? Otherwise if it is like 3 it might be too much. I see another potential issue when Berath Challenge is off and you repeatedly engage then scape within the same encounter, making it count as several encounters?

Not sure if you would like it, a bit of a crazy idea, but an alternative could be that once per the combat you have to achieve something extremely difficult to get it (but it must also not be trivializable or tedious). Combat games like Street Fighter comes to mind, where if you achieve a difficult combo of your attacks (x2, x3...) you unlock a super power. In Deadfire perhaps you would have to achieve in a quick row an enormous amount of absolute or percentage-wise damage/healing or buff/debuff time (or also tank an enormous amount of damage). I said it... a bit crazy!

1 hour ago, Noqn said:

Cycling Spell Tiers is no doubt the best solution to nerfing Brilliant while still allowing regeneration of high-tier spells, but the question remains if that is desirable. Wizard, Druid and Priests each have many great Spells in PL3 and below, relevant all the way through late-game. Regenerating within that selection is still an extremely strong effect, and still the best Tier 3 inspiration by far. Isn't that enough?

I also personally like the Cycling Spell Tiers idea the most. No idea about the issue with PL3. To me 1 spell / 6s sounds reasonable if it is at a high cost (1 resource / 6s for martial classes sounds bad in comparison though).

1 hour ago, Noqn said:

I really like the idea of Fatigue after the combat encounter. I have a single concern though, that this effect may add a 4th Injury and kill the drinker right after the encounter. We could use an Injury-like effect (like the Sigil Curses) or a hangover/addiction just to make sure that a player doesn't defeat a megaboss only to die from the fatigue injury? But if this is a non-issue then Fatigue would be great, so I'll add it meanwhile.

I would have expected that the drinker would be fully aware of the drawbacks and not use it if he/she has 3 injuries and has no more Adra Potions, but I agree if that happened it would suck a lot !

Edited March 20, 2021 by lewis_cb

[Bosmer]

11 hours ago, Noqn said:

I absolutely love the idea of restoring Empower Points, but to do it through a duration-based effect might be the wrong way to do it? Maybe if each character could empower more than once per encounter (and the game was balanced around that fact), but otherwise the effect would only be useful up to a certain amount of ticks for each encounter, which I think should be avoided for an Inspiration.

As a completely separate mechanic, how would you feel about the player passively restoring an Empower Point every Xth encounter?

The cool thing about an alternative brilliant effect evolving around the empowerment system is that it might give more purpose to this underused feature (maybe it's just me playing martial classes a lot) while also being quite thematically fitting, since int inspirations increase power levels. Empowering more than once per encounter might be challenging for the game balance, but note that the brilliant effect, as it is right now, already breaks the game balance severly  

[Boeroer]

I didn't mean that you could use empoiwer more often per encouter though (imo that's way too impactful) but simply to be able to restore Empower points so you won't have to rest in order to get them. 

It's true that at some point (if you're at max Empower) it wouldn't do anything more for you. But is that so bad? I can imagine to give Brilliant +5 INT, +3 (or 2?) PL and +Empower points so that it's always better than Acute even if Empower points are at max. 

[Elric Galad]

Yeah fatigue should happen when the potion is drunk, not at the end of encounter

If you don't mind to do it, feel free to do so.

[MaxQuest]

On 3/20/2021 at 1:57 AM, Noqn said:

I apologize to everyone for my inactivity, this week was more eventful than I expected...

No problem from my part)

I am currently not even 1/10th as active as I would want to, and miss a lot of discussions, due to neck related health problems.

P.S. Potion of Englightment = (ru) Зелье просветления.

Edited March 23, 2021 by MaxQuest

[Elric Galad]

On 3/18/2021 at 11:33 AM, Elric Galad said:

Here is an infinite version of the cycling Brilliant. It required a special effect to clean up the remaining pseudo-period triggered from ticks (pseudo-perdio triggered from initial effect cleans up automatically when Brilliant is ellapsed, but not the ones triggered by the 18s ticks) :

gn.brilliant_nerf_tweak.gamedatabundle 32.94 kB · 0 downloads

@Noqn

 

On 3/12/2021 at 2:27 PM, MaxQuest said:

It feels artificial to me too.

Thus the question: if the resource regeneration would be allowed to go on (so long as there is Brilliant effect), would that be ok? Provided that we would also make changes to SoT, WoD and Shroud of Phantasm.

----

Re: another Brilliant effect: I like Boeroer's idea with restoration of Empower points. But I also like resource regeneration because there are fights were it is indeed needed.

In case you need Russian translation here it is:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Distilled from the dissolved brains of Vithrack Luminaries and infused with the relentless essence of an Adra Animat, this concoction fills the user with marvellous insights and inexhaustible perseverance.

Эта смесь, дистиллированная из растворенных мозгов визрак-знатоков и пропитанная неустанной эссенцией адрового анимата, наполняет пользователя удивительной проницательностью и неиссякаемым упорством.

 

 

Maxquest, are you interested by the Cycling Brilliant (Tier 3/6/9) with no hard duration limit in my post above ?

I plan to include it in the next release of BPM, unless you want to include it in community patch (or another version of cycling brilliant with no hard limit )

[Noqn]

I have been somewhat absentminded and forgot to actually post it here, but I finalized the Potion of Enlightenment mod!
https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/501

A thousand thanks to everyone involved!

[Elric Galad]

I faced Dorudugan this weekend, with a quite standard party, without any cheese involved (BDD + Brilliant + SoT doesn't work with my mod anyway). Without a Cipher, with ressource-limited casters, etc.

Everybody glouped a Potion of Enlightenment.

It was satisfying to have my SC Druid casting Pollen Patch every 30s or having my Rogue able to flee after magnetic overdrive without fearing ressource depletion. Really kept all party members relevant. Satisfying experience.

Dorudugan is still a hard and technical fight. It still lasts arguably for too long. But overall, it was an epic fight. What Megabosses are intended to be  (not some sort of party forcing conundrum or slow death by attrition).

Edited July 26, 2021 by Elric Galad