Change godlikes to add true varity.

[St4n]

First I'm not a backer, but I have this game on my focus. (Buying it at release if I think it's worth it.)

So my only experience is from reading the wiki and footage from the beta.

 

At first the concept of godlikes has appealed to me, but now I think the effects are to low for "godlike".

Now there are only marginal effects.

Pro:

- few people will love you

- small attribute bonus

- one unique passive ability

 

Con:

- most people will hate you

- no helmet

 

How about giving it more impact? The people thing can stay, but instead of small boni it should be big boni balanced out with big mali. So it will add choice especially in combination with the classes. (And thus diversity.)

So you can choose a godlike to further increase the strength of some classes (in return to increase their weakness) or balance out weaknesses of others (in return to decrease their strenghts).

 

Easy to add: There could be added a skill bonus/malus, like nature godlike with bonus to "survival" and mauls to "mechanical". Or the fire godlike with bonus to "athletics" and malus to "stealth".

 

Harder to add: There could be some boni to related abilities and mali to nonrelated, like death godlike with a bonus to any debuff ability and a malus to any buff ability. Or the fire godlike with a bonus to any "fire" and "combat" ability, but a malus to any "nature" and "heal" ability that is not fire or combat.

 

This would add to some interessting choices between godlike/nongodlike and classes.

For example you can choose to be a fire godlike as druid and therfore greatly improve your capabilities with your spirtform (combat) and the few fire related abilities in extend of weakening most of your other abilities (nature). Maybe the nature godlike is the exact opposite and if you choose to be nongodlike you stay balanced in all your abilities.

 

Maybe add some weak related abilities which the godlike gets regardless of class.
So if you chose the fire godlike and mage you improve your "fire" magic but you will learn it's fire abilities anyways or you chose fire godlike and barbarian and miss the boni to "fire" magic, but that may be your only way to gain some fire magic with that class at all. (Ok, it would be OP with the boni to "combat" and the mali to "nature" and "heal" which the barbarian most likely doesn't have anyway, but that is only a suggestion to show what I mean.)

 

TL;DR:

Give the godlike more impact (positive and negative) to make it a true choice.

 

 

 

Note: I understand why a godlike may not be able to wear "any" helmet, but since you can craft armor yourself why not adding a few non-lootable helmets specifically for crafting and godlikes? If you are allready able to craft a helmet you will have no problem making some holes in it for horns or something individual that fits your own head regardless how "special" it may be formed.

[rjshae]

What's wrong with role-playing a generally unliked character?

 

I don't think you would want to make the abilities of the god-like too attractive, or it will be the go-to character for min-maxing. Hopefully they have it carefully balanced. What might be a concern is at higher levels where helms/circlets/hats start to provide some pretty useful capabilities. They may need to add one or more upper level ability boosts in order to balance that out.

[PieSnatcher]

Yeah I'm sure they could introduce some type of special HLAs for godlike if the disparity between helms and their established bonuses becomes too large.

 

Personally I hope they expand the range of godlike you can play as in future installments. I'm happy with what they have, but I'd like to be able to roll a godlike influenced by any god in the PoE pantheon.

[Bryy]

Pro:

- few people will love you

- small attribute bonus

- one unique passive ability

 

Con:

- most people will hate you

- no helmet

The only real non-applicable thing here is NPC reaction to you. At this point, the script is done and hardcoded in. There's nothing that can be done regarding that. All other things I generally agree with.

[prodigydancer]

I think I agree with the OP. Being an interesting and original race godlike should stand out a little. Elemental or metaphysical affinity needs to be more pronounced. E.g. Moon Godlike could have perception and/or combat bonuses at night compensated by similar penalties during daytime. Any such advantages (and disadvantages) should be situational but noticeable.

 

Helmet restriction feels awkward. I understand how it's justified from the development perspective - creating concepts and renders with so many different head shapes would be tough. But some sort of protective headgear should be available (though perhaps at a high price).