Appeal to Obsidian: Don't Change PoE Abilities

[Gromnir]

 

let's start with an assumption that people don't necessarily want more powerful characters but rather want more opportunity for unique and diverse builds, yes?

Well no, I wouldn't want to start with that assumption. For 2 reasons.

 

1) Beefing up the effects of the attributes would not only lead to powerful characters. It would also lead to severe penalties for people who decide to dump some of those stats in order to max out the others.

 

2) If we don't necessarily want more powerful characters then why are we asking for the talents to be beefed up?

 

 

In any event, I mostly agree with the rest of your post, which is why I didn't bother addressing it. Something should indeed be done to make the talents stand out, be more interesting, more unique, more meaningful, and to give us a reason to look forward to that next level up. But I'm looking at the big picture. Right now the entire system... the stats, the spells, the talents and even item properties, feel very soulless and...BORING... If one needs a spreadsheet to determine the difference between someone who's 1st level and someone who's 8th level, we've got a friggin problem: Josh Sawyer has sacrificed fun to appease his lord Balance.

 

THAT is the assumption I want to begin with, and then work from there to propose solutions.

 

1) your first point runs contrary to every crpg with ability points we can name... any d&d crpg, arcanum, fallout, etc. powerful abilities without dump stats is what PoE seems to be aiming for, and that becomes less likely if key character development is all happening at level one.

 

2) Gromnir were assuming you wanted the game to be more fun. bad on us we s'pose. power don't equal more fun. in point o' fact, power is one thing that leads to one o' the two most common complaints about all crpgs obsidian/black isle has ever developed: it was too easy.  one would assume that players wants their characters to feel useful and that they wants to believe their character development choices had meaning, but heck, if power is all it takes, game development just got a whole helluva alot easier.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited August 25, 2014 by Gromnir

[Stun]

power don't equal more fun.

Neither does decimal point, spreadsheet balance.

[Gromnir]

 

power don't equal more fun.

Neither does decimal point, spreadsheet balance.

 

actually, we could benefit greatly from some spreadsheets explaining what is actual going on in combat. nevertheless, we don't recall asking for such. ironic perhaps, you is the guy asking for power, which is most easily measured with hard numbers. Gromnir is more interested in relative fun and feel o' usefulness.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[ManifestedISO]

eh, so, for the lay-people struggling to understand (not me, I totally get all of this) ... so the problem beta backers believe they're experiencing, is weak character builds that all look the same? And are they asking for ability score bonuses to be higher to compensate? Is the general plea for more power?

 

And then, so, this thread's idea says, no, leave the ability scores alone ... because straight power increases are not the answer ... the answer is more choice of talents/skills at each level-up?  

[Ganrich]

eh, so, for the lay-people struggling to understand (not me, I totally get all of this) ... so the problem beta backers believe they're experiencing, is weak character builds that all look the same? And are they asking for ability score bonuses to be higher to compensate? Is the general plea for more power?

 

And then, so, this thread's idea says, no, leave the ability scores alone ... because straight power increases are not the answer ... the answer is more choice of talents/skills at each level-up?  

 

At Character Creation < that is key to this.  Gromnir is saying that players shouldn't be crapped on by the game for uneducated decisions at Character Creation.  That too many RPGs put far too much emphasis at CharGen, and not enough emphasis during level up.  A person with an odd build will still have valuable talents that are hidden behind Attribute Requirements in PoE.  While in the IE games they would just be screwed because their build may not be good enough to complete content.  Gromnir wants more emphasis on power gain as you level than at CharGen.  Simple as that.  I think he makes a solid argument.  That is... IF that is indeed the plan Obsidian has in store.  If the game will have few talents than I think the attribute system needs a tweak though.

[PrimeJunta]

eh, so, for the lay-people struggling to understand (not me, I totally get all of this) ... so the problem beta backers believe they're experiencing, is weak character builds that all look the same? And are they asking for ability score bonuses to be higher to compensate? Is the general plea for more power?

 

And then, so, this thread's idea says, no, leave the ability scores alone ... because straight power increases are not the answer ... the answer is more choice of talents/skills at each level-up?  

 

At least I'm not asking for more power, I'm asking for more variety. My proposal was to set the zero point for abilities at 10, then apply the adjustments but double their absolute values. If you dump something to 3, you should feel the bite; if you pump it to 18 or beyond, you should feel the punch. That way the challenge would become to play a build to its strengths, assuming that the game is still tuned to support a broad variety of builds within classes.

 

The design challenge would be to make all the abilities roughly equally appealing to all the classes. If you keep the stats at reasonable values ti would play more or less as now; if you minmaxed, you would have to work around your weaknesses in order to be able to exploit your strengths.

 

It would also permit a certain amount of minmaxing, yes. I don't necessarily see that as a bad thing; it was fairly central to the IE games and their successors too. Clever minmaxer-tactitians should be able to come up with builds, party compositions, and tactics that are objectively better. That's kind of the point, even.

 

Edit: my original proposal suggested putting in warnings in the CC UI if you dumped stats, and notes in the ability description to the same effect, so new players wouldn't unknowingly gimp themselves. Think of it as a hardcore mode for character creation.

Edited August 25, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Gromnir]

That is... IF that is indeed the plan Obsidian has in store.  If the game will have few talents than I think the attribute system needs a tweak though.

 

if what we got is all we get, then yeah, the ability distribution sux. nevertheless, Gromnir would prefer to look backwards and assume that ability scores is just one small aspect o' what is total character development. ability scores should not be so significant that other customization options pale by comparison. in point o' fact, we would rather that ability scores were less significant than subsequent level-up options.

 

is not that current abilities is insignificant, 'cause they ain't. even so, keeping the abilities in current relative muted state compared to past d&d crpgs, fallout and arcanum, allows obsidian to use subsequent leveling customization to develop meaningful build diversity.

 

but yeah, if current state is final state, then we need major changes.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Leferd]

 

eh, so, for the lay-people struggling to understand (not me, I totally get all of this) ... so the problem beta backers believe they're experiencing, is weak character builds that all look the same? And are they asking for ability score bonuses to be higher to compensate? Is the general plea for more power?

 

And then, so, this thread's idea says, no, leave the ability scores alone ... because straight power increases are not the answer ... the answer is more choice of talents/skills at each level-up?

 

 

At Character Creation < that is key to this.  Gromnir is saying that players shouldn't be crapped on by the game for uneducated decisions at Character Creation.  That too many RPGs put far too much emphasis at CharGen, and not enough emphasis during level up.  A person with an odd build will still have valuable talents that are hidden behind Attribute Requirements in PoE.  While in the IE games they would just be screwed because their build may not be good enough to complete content.  Gromnir wants more emphasis on power gain as you level than at CharGen.  Simple as that.  I think he makes a solid argument.  That is... IF that is indeed the plan Obsidian has in store.  If the game will have few talents than I think the attribute system needs a tweak though.

As Gromnir alluded to and what Josh wrote in Update 84, Obsidian is holding back on introducing the talents in order to test the core mechanics and then add talents based on play testing.

 

"You build a character at 1st level, but you will start the game with enough experience to advance to 5th. While we have very few Talents in the Backer Beta, you should be able to get a very good idea of the core functionality of all eleven classes. It is extremely important to us that the fundamentals of each class feel solid before we implement more Talents or move Abilities around."

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

IIRC, only a small number of talents were implemented in the beta and more are planned for the game. Which is good, as all we have now are weapon focus, hold the line, and various upgrades for class abilities. Would be nice to get an idea of what other things talents can do, because the beta talents are pretty boring.

 

EDIT: Ninja'd by Lefred.

Edited August 25, 2014 by KaineParker

[Matt516]

 

 

power don't equal more fun.

Neither does decimal point, spreadsheet balance.

 

actually, we could benefit greatly from some spreadsheets explaining what is actual going on in combat. nevertheless, we don't recall asking for such. ironic perhaps, you is the guy asking for power, which is most easily measured with hard numbers. Gromnir is more interested in relative fun and feel o' usefulness.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

I've actually got a spreadsheet in the works that will calculate average dps given various different factors such as Accuracy, Base Damage, DT, Might, etc. Damage is only one small part of combat, obviously, but it should at least help people understand the mechanics and balance a bit better.

[Ganrich]

 

 

eh, so, for the lay-people struggling to understand (not me, I totally get all of this) ... so the problem beta backers believe they're experiencing, is weak character builds that all look the same? And are they asking for ability score bonuses to be higher to compensate? Is the general plea for more power?

 

And then, so, this thread's idea says, no, leave the ability scores alone ... because straight power increases are not the answer ... the answer is more choice of talents/skills at each level-up?

 

At Character Creation < that is key to this.  Gromnir is saying that players shouldn't be crapped on by the game for uneducated decisions at Character Creation.  That too many RPGs put far too much emphasis at CharGen, and not enough emphasis during level up.  A person with an odd build will still have valuable talents that are hidden behind Attribute Requirements in PoE.  While in the IE games they would just be screwed because their build may not be good enough to complete content.  Gromnir wants more emphasis on power gain as you level than at CharGen.  Simple as that.  I think he makes a solid argument.  That is... IF that is indeed the plan Obsidian has in store.  If the game will have few talents than I think the attribute system needs a tweak though.

As Gromnir alluded to and what Josh wrote in Update 84, Obsidian is holding back on introducing the talents in order to test the core mechanics and then add talents based on play testing.

"You build a character at 1st level, but you will start the game with enough experience to advance to 5th. While we have very few Talents in the Backer Beta, you should be able to get a very good idea of the core functionality of all eleven classes. It is extremely important to us that the fundamentals of each class feel solid before we implement more Talents or move Abilities around."

Yup, and I get that. I am saying that he is arguing to take weight off character creation, and emphasizing character development more so via Talents, abilities, skills, spells, whatever. I am not saying that we will get more talents in Beta, but that they will help specialize your character where in the IE games it was done primarily by the attribute system in CharGen (for most classes).

[Leferd]

Ganrich, I get what you're saying, I was only adding the known facts of the matter.

 

For what it's worth, Josh doesn't think too highly of the d&d attribute system in any case.

 

Per his twitter: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/503562789844041728

 

@jesawyer: @DylanFrusciante good. d&d's attribute system is one if its worst aspects, IMO.

 

@jesawyer: @Mrakvampire i didn't say A/D&D systems are bad, but i do think that their attribute systems have always been bad.

[Mayama]

The just need to add some specialisation skills, like for example: Musketeer, gives 20% damage and 10% acccuracy bonus when using a pistol or rifle. Select it and BAM! your jack of all trade master of none fighter is a firearm specialist. Such skills would also fix the problem that might influences the damage of all ways of damage.

Edited August 25, 2014 by Mayama

[Gromnir]

The just need to add some specialisation skills, like for example: Musketeer, gives 20% damage and 10% acccuracy bonus when using a pistol or rifle. Select it and BAM! your jack of all trade master of none fighter is a firearm specialist. Such skills would also fix the problem that might influences the damage of all ways of damage.

am uncertain about specific numbers or your chosen example, but yeah, am believing that individual talents should be of significant importance to character customization. am also in favor o' having talents be free o' class restrictions. if a druid or wizard can figure out some way to makes a firearms specialization work for his/her build, so much the better-- am wanting more options and more build viability, not less. prerequisites that channel classes into taking specific talents or talent trees is an approach we find antagonistic to diversity and customization.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited August 25, 2014 by Gromnir

[Ganrich]

Yeah, I think that outside of boosting core class abilities, weapon focus/specialization, and the like... that the Talents should be class agnostic and only have attribute requirements (if any requirements) and other talents as prerequisites. That way the attributes can be what they are now and still have weight later in the game. A fighter should be able to learn a few spells, a Cipher could learn a talent that sacrifices ranged accuracy for melee accuracy, etc etc.

[aeonsim]

Agreed the addition of a diverse range of more talents with the ability to select a reasonable number during character progression would work wonders.

[Elerond]

I agree wit OP that less impactive attribute system helps make choices in leveling after first level feel more important. Although currently any of the classes don't have enough choices in level up to give player feeling that they can influence how their character is build up. Wizards are worst offenders in removing impact from player choices in leveling up, as they can always use other grimoires to use spells that they didn't select in leveling up. I think that this current lack of impactful choices in level up is probably one of the main reasons why people feel that attributes should have more impact in the game.

[PrimeJunta]

I don't see beefier abilities opposed to more and better talents at all. Why not have both?

[Stun]

I don't see beefier abilities opposed to more and better talents at all. Why not have both?

I believe the answer most people give to this is that if you beef up the attributes, you will be placing too much weight on customization at level 1, since that is when you're point-buying all your stats. What these people want is for the customization process to start out light and get heavier as you're leveling. Thus they propose a muted, less impactful Attribute system but a far more defined talent system.

 

I see their argument and all the why's and how's of it. I just don't agree. For a few reasons. First (yes I know I sound like a tiresome broken record but I'm gonna say it anyway. just ignore it if you're sick of seeing it) This is supposed to be a spiritual successor to the IE games, not Skyrim with classes. How many hundreds more miles away from the IE games do we have to travel before the Gromnirs are happy and the rest of us feel authentically misled by the kickstarter pitch? Second, what's wrong with impactful, meaningful level 1 customization anyway? That wasn't really explained to us in the OP. Does the beginning of the game not count or something? Will a stronger attribute system prevent more meaningful customization later? Are you afraid that some players will later regret their level 1 choices and so the attribute system must remain virtually meaningless to prevent these role-playing casuals from "mis-building" their own characters??

 

Ok, lets take a step back and identify what we see as things that need work:

 

1) Many people here and elsewhere have noted that the current attribute system needs tweaking as it doesn't seem to make much of a difference to any build in it's current minimal state

2) The talents that were shown to us in the beta could definitely use some "Oomph", not to mention a heavy dose of creativity.

 

So...how about we fix both, instead of just fixing 1 and then pretending that the other is good design?

Edited August 25, 2014 by Stun

[PrimeJunta]

Yeh, I think the "spiritual successor" thing is the crux of it. As I said earlier, in general I prefer attribute-less or attribute-light systems (as a matter of fact my homebrew cyberpunk/almost-hard-sci-fi system only has two, Mind and Body, and they're pools rather than modifiers), but beefy attributes are fairly central to the IE/DnD feel.

[Elerond]

I don't see beefier abilities opposed to more and better talents at all. Why not have both?

 

More beef abilities have more they will influence how character is optimal to build. Of course it maybe possible to create talent system that can work around that, but I am quite certain that it will be much more difficult to design and balance. Where less beefier (but not meaningless) abilities work as in roleplay purpose to tell player what kind character they are playing, but it will not in any case fully define what build/s and roles are most optimal for that character.

[Cthulchulain]

I agree wit OP that less impactive attribute system helps make choices in leveling after first level feel more important. Although currently any of the classes don't have enough choices in level up to give player feeling that they can influence how their character is build up. Wizards are worst offenders in removing impact from player choices in leveling up, as they can always use other grimoires to use spells that they didn't select in leveling up. I think that this current lack of impactful choices in level up is probably one of the main reasons why people feel that attributes should have more impact in the game.

 

D&D wizards have always had that versatility. Aside from choosing a specialist school and locking out some sets of spells, you could always fill out your spellbook from scrolls (plus you chose 0 spells on level up after level 1). Do you also oppose priests/druids having their full spellbook granted at each level? Having an interesting range of talents (ideally with more unique natures than the IWD2 wizard feats, which were chiefly "improve DC's for this type of spell" and "increase damage for this elemental type") is probably going to be the key to making customisation interesting on level up.

 

Incidentally, I think it'd be nice if the pure casting classes had the odd (passive?) class ability other than just more spells. Not necessarily every level, but Osvir's level 1-5 class summary definitely shows up the lack of other defining characteristics in the absence of talents. Alternatively, having a few additional class-specific talents that may be selected in addition to the general pool could work. Pathfinder does this nicely, extending 3E a bit.

 

Talents need to offer very specific boosts that can't be achieved by tweaking attributes alone -- that will allow higher levels to shape unique characters beyond what CC permits.

[Elerond]

To me spiritual successor for IE games don't mean that you need adopt rule systems from those games, but more overall things like isometric view angle, party placed gameplay, fantasy themes, certain aesthetic look, tactical combat gameplay, exploration, interesting plot, memorable characters. 

 

To me any single detail in rule system isn't important if it is as whole fun to play with and I don't think that designers should limit themselves with certain rule system solutions only because they were used in IE games, if they feel that some other solution would make gameplay more fun. 

[Elerond]

 

I agree wit OP that less impactive attribute system helps make choices in leveling after first level feel more important. Although currently any of the classes don't have enough choices in level up to give player feeling that they can influence how their character is build up. Wizards are worst offenders in removing impact from player choices in leveling up, as they can always use other grimoires to use spells that they didn't select in leveling up. I think that this current lack of impactful choices in level up is probably one of the main reasons why people feel that attributes should have more impact in the game.

 

D&D wizards have always had that versatility. Aside from choosing a specialist school and locking out some sets of spells, you could always fill out your spellbook from scrolls (plus you chose 0 spells on level up after level 1). Do you also oppose priests/druids having their full spellbook granted at each level? Having an interesting range of talents (ideally with more unique natures than the IWD2 wizard feats, which were chiefly "improve DC's for this type of spell" and "increase damage for this elemental type") is probably going to be the key to making customisation interesting on level up.

 

Incidentally, I think it'd be nice if the pure casting classes had the odd (passive?) class ability other than just more spells. Not necessarily every level, but Osvir's level 1-5 class summary definitely shows up the lack of other defining characteristics in the absence of talents. Alternatively, having a few additional class-specific talents that may be selected in addition to the general pool could work. Pathfinder does this nicely, extending 3E a bit.

 

Talents need to offer very specific boosts that can't be achieved by tweaking attributes alone -- that will allow higher levels to shape unique characters beyond what CC permits.

 

 

I don't oppose how they get their spells, but I think that it would be nice if they would have more meaningful choices in leveling up, meaning that I think that there should be talents, attribute adds or some other things that have permanent impact in how your character is build, because otherwise only really meaningful choices you do towards your character's build are done in character creation and as currently even those choices aren't very impactful, which makes wizards quite uninteresting character's to build (which of course don't mean that they are uninteresting character's to play with.).

 

Of course situation with wizards is about same as it was in IE games that use AD&D rule system variation, as there you rolled perfect or about perfect stat line for character and then select where you put weapon proficiency points in.

 

Reason why I want impactful choices for character during level up instead of pure power bonus is that I think it will add more replay value in the game as it will encourage players try same classes in multiple playthroughs as they have option to build them play differently from their previous playthrough.

[Gromnir]

I don't see beefier abilities opposed to more and better talents at all. Why not have both?

because beefier abilities necessarily lead to a dual problem... but am just repeating self.  first, it is not necessarily a positive that the defining characteristics o' your cipher or ranger be necessarily determined at first level. the more you beef up abilities, the the more important you make them in character development, the more essential they become to your character build. this is not a complex notion and is, we would suggest, undeniable. first level is already extreme important for character development, but in PoE 1st level is particularly focused on allocation o' ability points.  beef up abilities necessarily makes 1st level choices increasing vital. giving disproportionate value to level 1 choices is bad for a number o' reasons... scroll up if you need a full repeat o' the tedious exploration o' the notion, but short list looks like this: subsequent leveling choices is diluted, you increase likelihood of dump stats, failure (too powerful, too weak or too boring) becomes fixed at the very start of the game, etc. and keep in mind, Gromnir is not getting his arse handed to him in PoE combats... am not needing more power per se. 

 

second, if you beef up abilities, to make talents and other customization options compelling and meaningful they need also be beefier. am recognizing that "balance" is a vile and dirty word in these parts, but as soon as you power up some aspect o' character development, you must necessarily increase other aspects or those subsequent choices will become meaningless. balance becomes much more difficult if you add steroids to your ability beef. 

 

is an oft repeated example we use, 'cause is indicative o' the lack o' trust we have in the community to be reasonable 'bout character development choices. early in iwd2 development, the game were still an ad&d game and kits were proposed. kits is a first level customization aspect and is potential very significant. josh offered a handful o' potential kits to the black isle boardies to gauge approval/disapproval. josh's kit suggestions was hated. am not thinking we is exaggerating by using "hate" descriptor. is one o' those few times Gromnir were genuine shocked by board reaction. as many is aware, josh and Gromnir do not always agree on game issues, but we thought his kit suggestions were, at worst, lacking personality. as a whole, they were balanced and well designed additions. you can't imagine how much the josh kits were targets o' board vitriol. ad&d, more than d20, had all significant character development choices occur at level 1, and kits could be offering a significant amount o' beef to characters. 

 

in response to board hate, josh develops alternative kit. am forgetting the name, but it mighta' been called the Juggernaut o' Death. the kit were so freaking overpowered it were comical. clearly josh were having a bit o' fun with the community.

 

...

 

the community didn't get the joke. boardies loved the new kit. superlatives flowed like water o'er niagara falls. new kit were bestest kit ever and legion were the folks anticipating using it in their first play-through o' iwd2. 

 

fans is wacky when it comes to issues o' balance and power. fans, sadly, should not be trusted. fans will choose the God Power  nine times outta ten even if is obvious game breaking and even if they claim they want balanced. fans says silly stuff like, "I don't see beefier abilities opposed to more and better talents at all. Why not have both?"  you want juggernaut o' death, not balance.. you want juggernaut even if getting makes game too easy. 

 

less is frequent more. we has played some beta and we don't believe our characters feel weak, but the lack o' talents has made so we has less differentiation than we would like to see. ability scores already offer an element o' differentiation, but clear not enough to satisfy. makes sense that we should let obsidian use largely unseen talents to fix diversity problem before making wholesale changes to abilities. if talents ain't enough o' a fix, then sure, abilities can be tweaked, but for reasons above, bloat o' abilities is a bad place to start given they already afford noteworthy, if insufficient, diversity.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!