What makes a build/playthrough boring in your opinion?

[yorname]

I realized I've procastenated finishing my sorcerer run for months. The class isn't boring, quite the opposite in fact, but my problem is that combat becomes really uninteractive and repetitive. It's always queueing up a few buffs from Xoti, then blindly throw whatever spells I have and it's over. It's one of the few runs that I almost never needed support from the paladin.

Not the case with Deadfire, "having to do something" is also unfun imo. Like in Pathfinder WotR it's either stacking buffs then breeze through with melee, or use exploits, or suffer.

[Chaospread]

Party is boring for me, a part first time characters quest. I've more fun micro manage one character, respecing, change tatctis and trying different items/equip. With a party micro is frustrating, with no micro either your allied do the same things or you have to manage a very poor AI. In a party you have no "space" for experimenting strategy, instead solo almost enemy encounter you have to find a way to win.

[yorname]

15 hours ago, Chaospread said:

Party is boring for me, a part first time characters quest. I've more fun micro manage one character, respecing, change tatctis and trying different items/equip. With a party micro is frustrating, with no micro either your allied do the same things or you have to manage a very poor AI. In a party you have no "space" for experimenting strategy, instead solo almost enemy encounter you have to find a way to win.

Do you mind using exploits? I found that without them, viable classes are quite limited. After running out of those I went back to party.

[Chaospread]

I think exploits like SoT & BDD is mandatory (and not for all classes) only for Mega Bosses. Rest of content can be made with single class with non exploits/cheats. With a whole party the game is too easy  (and thus boring) also in PotD and Only Scales Upward.

[thelee]

On 4/27/2024 at 7:48 AM, yorname said:

my problem is that combat becomes really uninteractive and repetitive. It's always queueing up a few buffs from Xoti, then blindly throw whatever spells I have and it's over. It's one of the few runs that I almost never needed support from the paladin.

this. i've definitely had some builds that were objectively good but just mind-numbingly boring to play because they were so uninteractive. i had no problem abandoning them. the biggest one was a barbarian+fury that was geared up with PLs and every fight would just go frenzy -> all relentless storm -> all returning storm and then just dump out any the other spells. there just wasn't much to it at all, not even much movement, and there wasn't much enemies could specifically do to require decision-making on my part other than being lightning immune.

one of my early builds i posted around was the streetfighter+priest of wael combo ("umezawa" build i called it) and that stands out in contrast to the above of not only being a good build but also a blast to play because of how interactive it was.

Edited May 1 by thelee

[Boeroer]

17 hours ago, thelee said:

this. i've definitely had some builds that were objectively good but just mind-numbingly boring to play because they were so uninteractive. i had no problem abandoning them. the biggest one was a barbarian+fury that was geared up with PLs and every fight would just go frenzy -> all relentless storm -> all returning storm and then just dump out any the other spells. there just wasn't much to it at all, not even much movement, and there wasn't much enemies could specifically do to require decision-making on my part other than being lightning immune.

one of my early builds i posted around was the streetfighter+priest of wael combo ("umezawa" build i called it) and that stands out in contrast to the above of not only being a good build but also a blast to play because of how interactive it was.

I think that's why I like to play Helwalker/Berserker so much. I am forced to micromanage this character all the time (and AI settings won't cut it) and at the same time it's powerful and impactful.

Most runs I abandoned indeed were with characters that were really good but simply too boring/uninteractive to play at some point. Interestingly enough the Mortar Monk was not one of them. Mostly casters. Their actions in each encouter could be scritped rel. easily.

Edited May 2 by Boeroer
typooooos

[yorname]

17 hours ago, thelee said:

this. i've definitely had some builds that were objectively good but just mind-numbingly boring to play because they were so uninteractive. i had no problem abandoning them. the biggest one was a barbarian+fury that was geared up with PLs and every fight would just go frenzy -> all relentless storm -> all returning storm and then just dump out any the other spells. there just wasn't much to it at all, not even much movement, and there wasn't much enemies could specifically do to require decision-making on my part other than being lightning immune.

one of my early builds i posted around was the streetfighter+priest of wael combo ("umezawa" build i called it) and that stands out in contrast to the above of not only being a good build but also a blast to play because of how interactive it was.

Do you think it's possible to make a build *really* good and fun at the same time? Like if you can delete everything with a few spells, it being noninteractive is the result of being overpowered so there is no need to consider survival, strategy etc. Other builds are more interactive because they are not powerful enough to neglect other aspects, or have to do extra things to reach the same level of survivability or damage. Got me thinking if we have to deliberately go for "weaker" builds to have fun.

[Boeroer]

Psion/Troubadour is an example of being really good and lots of fun at the same time - at least for me. I think it's the versatility that motivates to apporach most encounters in different ways. You could go with one single set of actions every time - but it's much more rewarding to do the most efficient thing. So... summoning a bunch of X is always useful, but it takes a lot of time and steering the summons can be annoying - and it's totally not necessary if you can paralyze the enemies right away with a Killers Froze Stiff invocation - and so on. And you always have resources - but you cannot spell-spam high-level stuff right at the start of an encounter (which also makes stuff boring at some point).

Mortar Monk is another example. It's gamebreakingly good - but somehow it still is fun to unleash the umphteenth Whispers of the Mortar Winds Mayhem. Can't even say why in this case. Maybe because one had to wait for it for a rel. long time and also maybe because it isn't optimal for single tough foes - so you have to interact differently in those cases at least. Maybe also because it's best if you assemble as many foes as possible in a rel. small area. So every encounter turns into some kind of minigame where I tried to lure, steer, force enemies into a certain spot before I started WotW. The Troubadour/Arcane Archer (see below) is a perfect party member for this (very high ACC and bazillion parallel pulses of Binding Web and Pull of Eora)

Maybe yet another example could be a melee Bloodmage/Soulblade which is really good but also really versatile if must be. I'm not a big fan of Soulblades - but I read enough reports about this combo to know that several players did enjoy playing it. 

One-trick-ponies becoming boring to play is no secret. So maybe the takeaway is that versatile (and impactful) characters are more fun to play. 

Helwalker/Berserker with Saru-Sichr is very impactful in my game. Overabundance of wounds, very high chance for crit-chains, DoTs, great debuffing and CC and so on. Yet very difficult to manage due to the drastic self damage. It's a rewarding challenge imo. 

The good builds I had the most fun with (of course highly subjective):

1. Helwalker/Berserker
2. Mortar Monk
3. Psion/Troubadour (solo & party)
4. Steel Garrote/Bloodmage (solo & party)
5. SC Furyshaper (solo)
6. Stalker/Bloodmage (solo)
7. Troubadour/Arcane Archer 
8. Furyshaper/Troubadour
9. Streetfighter/Unbroken
10. Assassin/Bloodmage

Honorable mention: Assassin/Bleak Walker solo with Lover's Embrace. Absolute one-trick pony (or three-trick maybe... stack 3 everlasting DoTs on every enemy one by one, turn invisible, hide and wait) that I expected to become boring very quickly- but it carried the run for a sursprinsingly long time. Sometimes retreating and hiding was more difficult and risky as one might expect and sneaking past enemies failed often enough and things got a bit messy. Also sometimes it didn't work (Water Dragon, Huani O Whe...)

Edited May 2 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

If there's no challenge anymore and if there's no meaningful purpose/reward, then it gets boring very fast... 

[yorname]

On 5/2/2024 at 6:30 PM, Boeroer said:

 

I have some off topic questions, how did you solo with furyshaper? Limited resources and expensive healing, no pet or summon... Even the terror ward has awful ACC that I had trouble hitting mediocre enemies even with a party for debuffing, that I ended up just using the frenzy ward and it felt very general when I played one.

[Boeroer]

The Blood Ward is incredibly powerful because it heals from all sources of damage, DoT ticks included. So if you are a Furyshaper with a big health pool, decent defenses and AR and also resistances (=no hard disables) you can dish out Bleeding Cuts with Battle Axes (or other DoTs like from Saru Sichr) to a lot of enemies and get a constant flow of healing while dealing damage at the same time. Mostly auto-attacks bc. of the limited resources - but if you are in a pinch you can use Dazing Shout which is cheap, has a very big AoE and will daze and shake enemies, deal good dmg and heal you up nicely. And it can put Blood Storm's DoT on enemies in the area, too (more healing).

If you have trouble with the ward getting attacked: a scroll of withdraw does help a lot. It will conceal the ward completely but it will still work perfectly well for you.

I did all fights with this guy except Megabosses. He just wasn't equipped for those. I did the Crystal Empress - but the rest was so annoying that I skipped them. I guess Dorudugan would be possible (I mean technically I'd just have to poke him with Lover's Embrace) but I didn't try. 

I used some cheesy tactics, like cancelling Leap in mid air (= no attack roll at the landing site but also no cost: great mobility trick). But I didn't use endless prolonging effects like with Cabalist's Gambeson and so on.

The fun part was that one could combine damage dealing with survivability which sped things up. If one concentrates on tankyness usually the fights take forever.

That was also the experience with solo Streetfighter/Unbroken. Usually I'd say Trickster would be the better pick. But you are constantly flanked anyway and the damage output of the Streetfighter was very good for a tanky build which made the run less tedious. But also no Megabosses there. In hindsight I should have done Streetfighter/Black Jacket though. It's a lot of micro but the ability to switch between shield setup and offensive setup in an instant is very good when you are solo. You can switch to shield once you see something big incoming, shrug it off and immediately switch back to blender mode. Discipline mostly used for Refreshing Defense and Unbending. Guile mostly for Escape, Smoke Veil and sometimes Gouging Strike. 

 

Edited May 16 by Boeroer

[CopingMarlinsFan]

The answer to me is simple, the one that is most familiar to you and/or the dungeon master.