Ranged versus Melee

[GreyFox]

 

 

 

I'll point out that talents are available at level 3, 6, 9 and 12; for a total of 4 talents.

By the time I add some customization spice to my character through talents it will be The End. 

 

OE will likely increase the rate at which we get talents. I'd bet... oh... 100$ on it.

 

 

Yea..but like Josh was saying this is supposed to be the IWD/BG type of game so it isn't and probably shouldn't be realistic to have a complete character fully fleshed out in this game.

I feel if we get talents too often it will become bloated towards the end and inevitably the talents in PE2 will be less interesting/useful(or flat out over the top).

 

9 or 10 feats from levels 1-20 should work IMO and then whatever they decide to do above 20 if it goes beyond that.

 

 

Yeah I'd expect they end up going with 1 or 2 talents at lvl 1, then 1 every 2 levels from there.

 

 

That should be enough especially when we add in the class abilities and such.

[Gromnir]

 

I'll point out that talents are available at level 3, 6, 9 and 12; for a total of 4 talents.

By the time I add some customization spice to my character through talents it will be The End. 

 

OE will likely increase the rate at which we get talents. I'd bet... oh... 100$ on it.

 

am not wanting to be a wet blanket, but that would represent a considerable amount o' work.  at level 12 you would have 6 talents if obsidian switched to one talent every two levels. hopefully most o' the talents will not be class specific, but many will be. you need add a considerable number o' talents at each tier to makes folks believe they is making meaningful choices-- nobody is gonna be happy with worthless talent choices that is just filler. we don't even have a particularly deep spread o' talents at the moment.

 

...

 

we would be ecstatic if obsidian could add one talent every two levels, but at the moment, Gromnir would be quite satisfied if we could get genuine diversity and usefulness from the one per three scheme currently in place.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[konst3d]

In A/D&D people eventually got magical composite bows. Even if they didn't, 2nd Ed. grants bow specialists the Point Blank range category that explicitly allows them to add Strength bonuses to damage (and the +2 to hit on top of that).  Until 4E, their bonus damage also tended to spiral out of control since you could combine weapon and ammo bonuses with everything else.

 

Dave is implementing smarter targeting AI right now which should help with the feelings of overall immunity for the back ranks.  That said, I've heard mixed things about ranged characters.  Some posters state that bows are terrible (which presumably also means that implements are terrible) due to DT.  Are crossbows/arbalests and guns the powerhouses?

Composite bows allow to add *some* of your character STR bonus to damage, not STR bonus x1.5 like melee two-handed does. So the ranged damage output will always be lower this way. This also means you should invest into STR to have some benefits from this weapon. The problem is ranged to-hit depends on DEX and moving some points to STR means you sacrifice to-hit for damage, while melee character could concentrate on one ability and rise both to-hit and damage. 

I've heard that in some D&D redactions PBS added significant damage bonus, but my opinion is that this was a wrong decision, this way ranged weapon really become too powerful. I love how this feat works in NWN1\2 - +1 to attack in melee and no attacks of opportunity.

There are some powerful arrows that allow you to enhance your damage output but this could be balanced with its price and availability.

Well, in general I feel that the right way of balancing ranged\melee is to make melee hit harder while keeping ranged more versatile (freedom of target selection, attacking from the safe distance, different ammo selection). And don't forget you could combine 1-handed melee weapon with the shield for better protection.

 

Edit:

Feats\Talents could also help to keep the things balanced - add some interesting combat abilities like DnD's manyshot\rapid shot\AA class goodies\etc. Just in case ranged will become to boring without the melee's damage.

Edited September 10, 2014 by konst3d

[Valorian]

 

 

 

I'll point out that talents are available at level 3, 6, 9 and 12; for a total of 4 talents.

By the time I add some customization spice to my character through talents it will be The End. 

 

OE will likely increase the rate at which we get talents. I'd bet... oh... 100$ on it.

 

 

Yea..but like Josh was saying this is supposed to be the IWD/BG type of game so it isn't and probably shouldn't be realistic to have a complete character fully fleshed out in this game.

I feel if we get talents too often it will become bloated towards the end and inevitably the talents in PE2 will be less interesting/useful(or flat out over the top).

 

9 or 10 feats from levels 1-20 should work IMO and then whatever they decide to do above 20 if it goes beyond that.

 

 

Yeah I'd expect they end up going with 1 or 2 talents at lvl 1, then 1 every 2 levels from there.

 

 

Sounds about right: 7 talents (player agency) and 14 abilities (class progression).

 

I'd much rather have 7 moderately strong talents, so I can mix and match them, than 3 or 4 super strong ones. The BB talents are moderately strong, weaker than abilities. And it's not like they'll design talents so that they're useless for level 10 characters, but ultrapowerful on level 1 - 3 (i.e. most of them, I presume, will be available regardless of level).

 

Also, as expected: "The issue has never been that we don't have ideas for Talents (we have a doc full of them)" -Josh

[Gromnir]

 

 

 

 

I'll point out that talents are available at level 3, 6, 9 and 12; for a total of 4 talents.

By the time I add some customization spice to my character through talents it will be The End. 

 

OE will likely increase the rate at which we get talents. I'd bet... oh... 100$ on it.

 

 

Yea..but like Josh was saying this is supposed to be the IWD/BG type of game so it isn't and probably shouldn't be realistic to have a complete character fully fleshed out in this game.

I feel if we get talents too often it will become bloated towards the end and inevitably the talents in PE2 will be less interesting/useful(or flat out over the top).

 

9 or 10 feats from levels 1-20 should work IMO and then whatever they decide to do above 20 if it goes beyond that.

 

 

Yeah I'd expect they end up going with 1 or 2 talents at lvl 1, then 1 every 2 levels from there.

 

 

Sounds about right: 7 talents (player agency) and 14 abilities (class progression).

 

I'd much rather have 7 moderately strong talents, so I can mix and match them, than 3 or 4 super strong ones. The BB talents are moderately strong, weaker than abilities. And it's not like they'll design talents so that they're useless for level 10 characters, but ultrapowerful on level 1 - 3 (i.e. most of them, I presume, will be available regardless of level).

 

Also, as expected: "The issue has never been that we don't have ideas for Talents (we have a doc full of them)" -Josh

 

coming up with ideas for talents is easy. deciding which ones is gonna be actual useful and desirable is hard. am not certain how many times we played fallout 2, but we will say with some confidence that we never used more than 1/3 o' the available perks... which is much like PoE talents. there were something close to 75 (am guessing... honest don't know the number) fo2 perks total, and we used a relative small fraction.  hell, fallout (original) had a couple skills that only a complete idiot would choose.  there is still people that have no idea what outdoorsman added to fallout. were no way for a New player to know that fo original outdoorsman and many fo2 perks were worthless.

 

we made a joke earlier in this thread about a talent that would double the usefulness o' camping supplies. it would not surprise us if such a talent were on josh's doc. even so, is a talent that only one in a bazillion PoE players would choose. is a nice role-play talent, but is functional a waste o' space. 

 

for obsidian to develop a quality spread o' talents that is balanced, diverse and genuine useful is gonna be a challenge. am gonna be very impressed if we get a final list o' talents that we see 2/3 o' them being useful for any Gromnir build, real or imagined.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps we did not accidentally bold "balanced." that were a Major problem for fo game perks as many were so much more useful than others that they effective became no-brainer choices. am knowing that balance is an ugly word around here, but is never about power when Gromnir uses. we will choose less powerful if we get equal use and fun from a weapon/ability/feat/talent/whatever. even so, balance is, and should be, a serious concern... and balance is hard.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Gromnir

[Valorian]

 

 

for obsidian to develop a quality spread o' talents that is balanced, diverse and genuine useful is gonna be a challenge.

 

 

Everything is a challenge. Develop 11 balanced classes, lots of useful weapons, 6 attributes... challenging.

Talents are no exception, but there's a great value in having 11 classes instead of 3, six attributes instead of two and 7 talents of your choice instead of 4.

[Gromnir]

 

 

 

for obsidian to develop a quality spread o' talents that is balanced, diverse and genuine useful is gonna be a challenge.

 

 

Everything is a challenge. Develop 11 balanced classes, lots of useful weapons, 6 attributes... challenging.

Talents are no exception, but there's a great value in having 11 classes instead of 3, six attributes instead of two and 7 talents of your choice instead of 4.

 

and as we noted earlier, having 11 classes made coming up with additional talents more difficult as many talents will necessarily be class specific.

 

Gromnir is in favor o' more choice. however, am recognizing that going from one talent every three levels to one every two would be creating considerable more work. if obsidian could manage such a feat and keep such talents balanced, diverse and genuine useful, "we would be ecstatic."  

 

am not suggesting that obsidian should ignore pleas for more talents. however, we were responding to folks who thought increasing the rate o' talents were a forgone conclusion. we don't current see the rate o' talents being increased. is so much on obsidian plate at the moment and they know that increase talent rate increases balancing concerns... and they is planning on making this game a series. they can't simply consider what folks would want from PoE. what is best if you end up with twenty-four or thirty levels by game three?  

 

*shrug*

 

we like more, but...

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Valorian]

 

 

 

 

for obsidian to develop a quality spread o' talents that is balanced, diverse and genuine useful is gonna be a challenge.

 

 

Everything is a challenge. Develop 11 balanced classes, lots of useful weapons, 6 attributes... challenging.

Talents are no exception, but there's a great value in having 11 classes instead of 3, six attributes instead of two and 7 talents of your choice instead of 4.

 

 what is best if you end up with twenty-four or thirty levels by game three?  

 

*shrug*

 

 

 

 

Who knows..maybe they'll simply reduce the frequency of talents after level 12 if they find them overwhelmingly imbalanced or something, but I doubt that'd be an issue since the impact of talents is almost marginal (compared to class abilities). I totally don't expect they'd maintain the rate of class abilities all the way to level 30 (32 class abilities x 11) either.

Perhaps the protagonist in PoE 2 will be a newbie and start at level 1. That's my preference, anyhow.

 

Shrug indeed. 

[Matt516]

To be fair, Gromnir, there's nothing wrong with including a few intentionally weaker but funny/role play-ey talents in with the pool. Bloody Mess (I think it was called) in FO1 was purely for flavor - no problem with that.

[Gromnir]

To be fair, Gromnir, there's nothing wrong with including a few intentionally weaker but funny/role play-ey talents in with the pool. Bloody Mess (I think it was called) in FO1 was purely for flavor - no problem with that.

bloody mess were a trait picked at 0 level. most traits had a benefit and a handicap. ideally, the trait pros and cons balanced themselves resulting in a net 0 gain. gifted, on the other hand, had a benefit that far exceeded the handicap and has become a wonderful example o' how not to design such stuff in crpgs... evar. fallout were not a particularly well-balanced game, but bloody mess isn't actual analogous to the present topic as it were a trait that had no benefit and no handicap... were just fun.

 

HA! Goof Fun!

Edited September 10, 2014 by Gromnir

[Doppelschwert]

I'm with gromnir on this one. I too would like to have a lot of talents, just as anybody else, but it's a lot that is asked for.

Given that combat and noncombat ressources are split, talents can only give you advancement in combat, and there is only so much you can do for combat.

 

I think anybody that wants a talent every two levels should consider that you need a lot more talents than the available slots so that you actually are making a meaningful decision, just as gromnir already pointed out. Just try to come up with 10 talents that are genuinly useful to every class without being flat bonuses like '+X deflection' and you'll see it's quite hard to come up with interesting stuff.

 

If you can't have enough class specific talents such that two characters of the same class can have a different set of talents at level 12, IMO it's not resonable to pump the number of talents up to 2 per level, especially if you imagine that the game might have 3 titles ranging up to lvl 30, where you should be able to do this as well. Otherwise, you might as well make them hardcoded class features.

 

What would help however, IMO, would be to arrange class talents in a pool. You level up, some new talents go into the pool, but you can only learn one of them. Some talents will always be left in the pool, but you can decide on your priorities which one to choose. Now you have choice and it's always meaningful (given that the class talents themselves are useful in different situations/builds). Of course, abilities have to be set up in a way that there is incentive to pick up old ones even later in the game, but that can be acomplished. Alternatively, give choice of a small boost of some numbers for abilities every other level. Easy to implement while still responding to the agency of the player.

Edited September 10, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[JFSOCC]

bit off topic, but this thread brought it up.

I'd like a fast weapon switch talent and a reload speed increase talent.

 

If we only get a talent every three levels, we would end up with four talents (five if you can choose one at the start) in total. I wonder if that is enough for character build differentiation. (I hope it won't all depend on your attribute choices at the start)

[Sensuki]

Weapon switching isn't working as intended yet I don't think. It should have an action animation and a recovery time that is the same length as a base like every other action in the system (barring ranged weapon reloading). Currently it does not follow these rules.