Why so set against giving us any (non-combat) health healing?

[Shadenuat]

When encounters are balanced and don't bug out like infinite sneak attacks from Medreth, Fighter performs fine. Even too well, you can place the dwarf to tank 3 other characters and he like, would't care a **** almost for whole combat.

Compared to a BB Wizard who seems to fall on the ground in 2 seconds when something reaches him (unless you Arcane Veil), he's good at soaking damage.

[Infinitron]

 

[..]On the other hand, if you're letting your one tank get f*cked up constantly, that's kind of your fault.

Hmm, what's the role of a tank is not to be the one to get ****ed up instead of others?

I mean you might not agree with the need for a tank (which I have no problem with), but once you allow that path to be taken, then that's pretty much their role? I mean, fighters have nothing but talents dedicated to do just that, soaking up damage and get ****ed up constantly. The more you use resources to "CC" and "prevent damage", the more useless they become at their one and only role in the game...

...so it's not a failure or a fault if your tank gets ****ed up really, according to the game design, at least some of it, it's actually a success if the tank is getting hit constantly, because that's what everything in the class is designed for...except the Health system...

 

 

Depends how define tanking. If you define "tanking" as "the character that stops enemies in their tracks and takes most of the hits", then the health system is irrelevant and the fighter is doing his job just fine.

 

But if you define "tanking" as "the character that absorbs most of the party's total health resources", then yeah, Pillars of Eternity makes that impossible, because the only health/healing resource available to a character is his own health bar.

 

So there's a tradeoff between tanking and having to worry about long-term/strategic damage spread across your entire party, unlike the Infinity Engine games where you could "healbot" your tank until you ran out of healing spells, and he was 100% effective until that time.

 

I don't think this is necessarily a downside. In fact, it makes me laugh. A lot of people on this forum complained that "Pillars of Eternity pigeonholes us into MMO-style 'combat roles'!" Yet here is a mechanic that diminishes those roles and forces you to mix it up more...and now people are complaining about that.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Infinitron

[Mayama]

 

[..]On the other hand, if you're letting your one tank get f*cked up constantly, that's kind of your fault.

Hmm, what's the role of a tank is not to be the one to get ****ed up instead of others?

I mean you might not agree with the need for a tank (which I have no problem with), but once you allow that path to be taken, then that's pretty much their role? I mean, fighters have nothing but talents dedicated to do just that, soaking up damage and get ****ed up constantly. The more you use resources to "CC" and "prevent damage", the more useless they become at their one and only role in the game...

...so it's not a failure or a fault if your tank gets ****ed up really, according to the game design, at least some of it, it's actually a success if the tank is getting hit constantly, because that's what everything in the class is designed for...except the Health system...

 

Do you like any RPG with more than one character in your party? I guess not because I cant think of a single exeption to the frontline tanks, backline nukes scenario. The HP of your tank(s) is basicaly the HP of your whole party. The armor and HP of the backline is their to have a time buffer if things go south. CC'ed enemies that dont hit the tank are equal to extra HP for the tank. Also who said that fighters do not deal damage?!

Edited August 30, 2014 by Mayama

[prodigydancer]

The idea with the stam/health+no magic healing mechanic, plus having several classes with per-encounter stamina healing, is that it frees the priest's spells for other uses, and it makes it possible to play even without a priest. If your tank soaks up most of the damage, you can use the barb's Defiant Resolve of the fighter's Second Wind; if you have a pally in the party, you can Lay On Hands. And of course it all recharges after the fight is over, until you run low on health and have to rest.

 

The principle is IMO sound. There would have been other ways to accomplish it, but this works well enough. Priest gameplay still has problems -- it's basically turned the priest from a heal-o-mat to a buff-o-mat, still making for rather monotonous gameplay -- but now there's no fundamental obstacle to giving the priest cool abilities.

Call me old-fashioned but I prefer the D&D/IE system over what we have in PoE right now. I always found other uses for my healers (e.g. in BG Jaheira was an OK melee figher/off tank) when I didn't need immediate access to heals.

 

Resting wasn't a chore and a pain in IE games only because you could rest almost anywhere anytime. When you're one keypress away from regaining your spells it's not so bad. In PoE it can be much worse, if bonuses from resting in an inn prove to be significant after some balance passes.

Edited August 30, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Mayama]

Resting wasn't a chore and a pain in IE games only because you could rest almost anywhere anytime. When you're one keypress away from regaining your spells it's not so bad. In PoE it can be much worse, if bonuses from resting in an inn prove to be significant after some balance passes.

 

Thats the whole reason why they try that system because "resting wasn't a chore and a pain..." the only thing that balanced mages in AD&D was their spell limit. Rest-scuming (and people call it that for a reason) negates that whole balance aspect and is one of the reasons why mages were so OP compared to any other class. It adds depth to the system if you cant engage with all spells constantly.

[mutonizer]

Do you like any RPG with more than one character in your party? I guess not because I cant think of a single exeption to the frontline tanks, backline nukes scenario. The HP of your tank(s) is basicaly the HP of your whole party. The armor and HP of the backline is their to have a time buffer if things go south. CC'ed enemies that dont hit the tank are equal to extra HP for the tank. Also who said that fighters do not deal damage?!

Hmm, because their entire class mechanics is based around that: soaking up damage and tanking?

In IE engine with D&D, you could totally make DPS fighters, dual wielding fighters, heavy weapon fighters, dex fighters, str fighters, feat/int fighters, cleavers, tactical fighters and even ranged specialists.

I don't quite see that option here, so I'm going with what I've seen so far.

 

Could be wrong of course, but who said that fighters do not deal damage?

The game itself...

 

[..]He's good at soaking damage

Never said he wasn't, I just said that the "soaking damage" system is the only system that matters (since it's your only game over system) and that while the entire game is based around a resource management system per "adventuring day", this one is instead removed from it and placed on another grid entirely, possibly ending up in situations where all your resources are perfectly fine, and yet your adventuring day if over because of it.

That's all I'm saying really.

 

Sure you can mitigate the loss, sure you can "play better", but that doesn't remove the fact that it's there! It is in theory, with this mechanic (and I'm sure it'll happen), possible to have 100% fully rested characters, fresh from the inn and yet you have one guy step into a trap or take a lucky crit, or anything really, instantly lose tons of health (I'm guessing up to 25% instantly, though not sure if there's a cap), and be somewhat forced to rest again because of it.

There is nothing else you can do here, no scroll you can use, no potion, no resource or spell or talent...You just rested 8 hours...rest again for 8 hours.

[Shadenuat]

 

The stam/health ratio needs tweaking though. 1:4 is too punishing. I'd try 1:8 to see if it's too forgiving.

Barb has that. Makes an interesting although strange choice in tanking - Fighter loses more health but he can stand on his own for long, but Barb actually can go through more encounters but needs constant babysitting with a Cleric.

A bit counter intuitive since they're supposed to be opposite - Fighter lasts longer, while Barb is a one hit berserker.

 

 

It is in theory, with this mechanic (and I'm sure it'll happen), possible to have 100% fully rested characters, fresh from the inn and yet you have one guy step into a trap or take a lucky crit, or anything really, instantly lose tons of health (I'm guessing up to 25% instantly, though not sure if there's a cap), and be somewhat forced to rest again because of it.

It doesn't really work that way. You can switch roles like putting heavy armor on a Wizard and popping Arcane Veil, for example. That was what I did when after a few encounters my Fighter wasn't healthy enough to engage into another one.

And even losing a quarter of health doesn't turn Fighter obsolete. It's more about active abilities and other things like stamina gain and defensive buffs. You can tank even wil 30% of health if you combine all your abilities right.

 

The traps are also mostly AoE and seem to do more stamina dmg than health. They're weird and bugged for now.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Shadenuat

[prodigydancer]

Rest-scuming (and people call it that for a reason) negates that whole balance aspect and is one of the reasons why mages were so OP compared to any other class. It adds depth to the system if you cant engage with all spells constantly.

First, I've never seen anyone calling it rest-scumming. Second, what makes perfect sense in PnP doesn't necessarily make any in a video game. In PnP modules combat is often very scarce in comparison with CRPGs. Encounters may be few and far between. Running is more often a viable option (partially due to metagame being less important) and so is talking your way out of a fight.

 

I'm confident that I'll adapt to any system. But I sure as hell won't roll a caster character in a CRPG where I don't have access to my spells whenever I need them. Cooldowns are OK (in moderation) but a mage who is constantly out of spells is just pathetic.

Edited August 30, 2014 by prodigydancer

[wolfstriked]

Why are fighters not the highest damage dealers?Weird that they are mainly tanks while the outside squad are the heavy hitters.Always found that weird.Give me a weak rogue who I pump with high dex and I use mainly as a weaker combatant from a far distance anyday.But when you need stuff done like scouting ahead,trap finding,lock picking etc they are super important.

 

As for magic I feel that D&D made it too powerful.All this talk of them needing to add in resting to balance out the magic users could of been easily fixed by just making magic users less powerful. Of course we need super high power magic users and this is where I felt that stuff like becoming a lich would work for higher levels but at the idea that you sell your soul so to speak.

[Nomadmerc]

Excellent concerns raised Mutonizer. Those of us that play or plan to play the Path of the Damned setting see the current systems lack of combat diversity. 

[Volourn]

"Developers tend to do the later not because they believe that missing a lot is boring they do it because the majority hates systems that go like this: Miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, crit dead, reload..."

 

If this were true DnD and all its copy cats wouldn't be so popular. Hilarious!

[Mayama]

"Developers tend to do the later not because they believe that missing a lot is boring they do it because the majority hates systems that go like this: Miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, crit dead, reload..."

 

If this were true DnD and all its copy cats wouldn't be so popular. Hilarious!

We talk about computer games here.

 

 

 

I'm confident that I'll adapt to any system. But I sure as hell won't roll a caster character in a CRPG where I don't have access to my spells whenever I need them. Cooldowns are OK (in moderation) but a mage who is constantly out of spells is just pathetic.

Its called resource management.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Mayama

[Utukka]

I think the mechanic is OK, and I understand the reasoning. It's about "strategic healing resources" -- how deep can you go before you have to stop to rest/resupply, and with priest/cleric gameplay.

 

In the DnD based games, the limiting factor was your priest's spell selection. You kept going until you ran out of heals. You set aside potions for emergency use in combat, but at least I rarely used them to extend the adventuring day as it were; instead when my priest was out of juice, I rested.

 

This works well enough but it has two problems. One, you pretty much need a priest in every party, or at least a druid; and two, if you only have one, if not all, at least a very large chunk of the priest's spells go towards healing. I.e., your priest becomes a medic--someone you absolutely need, but who doesn't do all that much other than casting heals.

 

The idea with the stam/health+no magic healing mechanic, plus having several classes with per-encounter stamina healing, is that it frees the priest's spells for other uses, and it makes it possible to play even without a priest. If your tank soaks up most of the damage, you can use the barb's Defiant Resolve of the fighter's Second Wind; if you have a pally in the party, you can Lay On Hands. And of course it all recharges after the fight is over, until you run low on health and have to rest.

 

The principle is IMO sound. There would have been other ways to accomplish it, but this works well enough. Priest gameplay still has problems -- it's basically turned the priest from a heal-o-mat to a buff-o-mat, still making for rather monotonous gameplay -- but now there's no fundamental obstacle to giving the priest cool abilities.

 

The stam/health ratio needs tweaking though. 1:4 is too punishing. I'd try 1:8 to see if it's too forgiving.

I certainly have nothing against adding in some cool abilities for Priests to add in some spice but I guess I always viewed Priests or Clerics as the buffs/healers of the group...it's the "roll" they are meant to play while adding in additional tanking/offensive ability when you can. Sort of a necessary evil if you will. I also tend to play no-reload on the most challenging content possible...so I tend to find it less monotonous...I remember many times in BG2 wishing my Cleric had spent more time as an auctioneer.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Utukka

[Mayama]

I certainly have nothing against adding in some cool abilities for Priests to add in some spice but I guess I always viewed Priests or Clerics as the buffs/healers of the group...it's the "roll" they are meant to play while adding in additional tanking/offensive ability when you can. Sort of a necessary evil if you will. I also tend to play no-reload on the most challenging content possible...so I tend to find it less monotonous...

The stam/health ratio needs tweaking though. 1:4 is too punishing. I'd try 1:8 to see if it's too forgiving.

 

Warhammer online had one of the coolest priest concept ever, guys that wade into combat and heal allies with the damage they deal.

[PrimeJunta]

Resting wasn't a chore and a pain in IE games only because you could rest almost anywhere anytime. When you're one keypress away from regaining your spells it's not so bad. In PoE it can be much worse, if bonuses from resting in an inn prove to be significant after some balance passes.

 

That's exactly the problem with resting in IE games. Why even bother imposing any limitations on spellcasting if all it takes is one keypress to get them back?

[Panteleimon]

 

 

Mutonizer doesn't seem to have access to the beta, only observing youtubers. Just because someone streams does not mean that he knows what he is doing. In general almost anyone with beta access here on the forum thinks that we have no real clue about how combat will be because it has bugs that cause cluster****s, no readability implemented and zero balance.

 

 

 

Probably the most salient point in regards to the "Great Wall of Text". From an academic standpoint that's fine, but if you're going to dissect the PoE beta, you should probably actually try it first.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Panteleimon

[Volourn]

"We talk about computer games here."

 

Uh... DnD computer games are popular. What do you think PE is a 'spiritual successor' to? Dnd games that are popular. LMAO

 

 

"That's exactly the problem with resting in IE games. Why even bother imposing any limitations on spellcasting if all it takes is one keypress to get them back?"

 

Exactly. Limitations on resting is a good and needs to be balanced to be fair and to give players a reasonable challenge. Any game that forces you to rest after every battle or two sucks. Plain and simple. Any game that allows you unlimited resting has a major flaw. Thankfully, in the IE games you didn't have to rest after every battle unless you absolutely sucked at the game. I tried to never rest in a dungeon and enver more than ocne per overland map otherwise I find it silly. Rule of thumb is you should never rest more than once in a 24 hour game time cycle.

Edited August 30, 2014 by Volourn

[PrimeJunta]

I certainly have nothing against adding in some cool abilities for Priests to add in some spice but I guess I always viewed Priests or Clerics as the buffs/healers of the group...it's the "roll" they are meant to play while adding in additional tanking/offensive ability when you can. Sort of a necessary evil if you will. I also tend to play no-reload on the most challenging content possible...so I tend to find it less monotonous...I remember many times in BG2 wishing my Cleric had spent more time as an auctioneer.

 

My absolute favorite character to play in all the IE games and their successors is a battlepriest. Pump STR at the expense of CHA, use some of those insanely powerful self-buffs, then cast a medium-duration group buff/debuff (some favorites are Recitation, Prayer, and Battletide from 3e), and wade in, and use healing spells offensively against undead.

 

In fact the cleric/priest is my favorite DnD class by far, because it's the only one with real versatility, especially in 3e. Pick the right domains, and you can be just about anything: you can out-stealth a thief (Knowledge, or perhaps Magic domain gives Knock, you already have Find Traps), out-blast a mage, out-fight a fighter, all the time being the best healer and group buffer in town. It would be just as good if some of that power was dialed down a bit, while keeping the versatility.

 

P:E ATM doesn't really support this kind of thing, which is a shame.

[PrimeJunta]

In re tanking and the classes, IMO the fighter needs to be made seriously more interesting. You can build a 90% as effective tank with the barbarian, with the additional bonus of more strategic durability due to the better stam/health damage ratio, better damage output due to Carnage, and the ability to turn into a human fireball with Wild Sprint, Rage, and eventually Defiant Resolve.

 

Unless they do something to seriously expand the fighter's strategic options, I'll pass. That one extra engagement limit and Knockdown are nice but not that nice.

[Volourn]

Plus, they need to fix that stupid knockdown noise. Worst ability sound effect I've ever heard in any game ever. L0L

[mutonizer]

Probably the most salient point in regards to the "Great Wall of Text". From an academic standpoint that's fine, but if you're going to dissect the PoE beta, you should probably actually try it first.

When I watch people jump from windows and witness the process, I don't really need to try it first and yet, while I agree that I never had a personal experience with it, I think I can comment on it, with all reserve applied of course, compared to someone who actually did jump out a window.

Plus, since the only time I'll be able to "try it first" will be after release, I rather raise something I think is a potential problem now and be wrong, than be right, and realize it's way too late to say anything.

 

Plus I like gameplay and game mechanics discussions, so..there's that

Edited August 30, 2014 by mutonizer

[Elerond]

In re tanking and the classes, IMO the fighter needs to be made seriously more interesting. You can build a 90% as effective tank with the barbarian, with the additional bonus of more strategic durability due to the better stam/health damage ratio, better damage output due to Carnage, and the ability to turn into a human fireball with Wild Sprint, Rage, and eventually Defiant Resolve.

 

Unless they do something to seriously expand the fighter's strategic options, I'll pass. That one extra engagement limit and Knockdown are nice but not that nice.

 

From what I have understood from Josh writings basic idea behind fighter is to be class option that need minimal micromanagement and can take hit after hit without going down. Where barbarian and monk need much more micromanagement to be effective. Although he said that fighter would get talents that will change him more active character, but currently (if ever) those talents aren't included in backer beta.

[PrimeJunta]

True, but as things currently stand you can use a barb as a pawn to control space with very little more micromanagement. OK, deflection isn't as high and the engagement limit is one lower so you will need to watch his stamina a bit, but that's only a little more micromanagement.

 

There's nothing actually wrong with the fighter, it's useful and all; I just think it's somewhat boring and extremely role-limited. I'm sure there are people who like that sort of thing; I do not belong in that group however.

[Mayama]

True, but as things currently stand you can use a barb as a pawn to control space with very little more micromanagement. OK, deflection isn't as high and the engagement limit is one lower so you will need to watch his stamina a bit, but that's only a little more micromanagement.

 

There's nothing actually wrong with the fighter, it's useful and all; I just think it's somewhat boring and extremely role-limited. I'm sure there are people who like that sort of thing; I do not belong in that group however.

 

I wish rpg developers would play a bit guild wars 1 and learn. They had so many interesting ideas, like the gw1 necromancer he could transfer debuffs around and for example consume them from allies to heal himself. They had dozens of those really cool and fresh ideas.

[Lord Wafflebum]

 

Probably the most salient point in regards to the "Great Wall of Text". From an academic standpoint that's fine, but if you're going to dissect the PoE beta, you should probably actually try it first.

When I watch people jump from windows and witness the process, I don't really need to try it first and yet, while I agree that I never had a personal experience with it, I think I can comment on it, with all reserve applied of course, compared to someone who actually did jump out a window.

Plus, since the only time I'll be able to "try it first" will be after release, I rather raise something I think is a potential problem now and be wrong, than be right, and realize it's way too late to say anything.

 

Plus I like gameplay and game mechanics discussions, so..there's that

 

While fair that you should voice you concerns now it really is a shame that you can't try the beta. I work a lot so for the first few days of beta I could only watch videos in my sparse downtime. When I finally got the chance to actually play there was a significant difference in experience. 

 

As someone else mentioned, the way the game stands its really hard to get a good idea how any system in combat works. Between the bugs and the chaos combat always quickly devolves into I still don't know how I feel about any of the combat (including health) systems. Until OE gets the chance to refine it more I don't think any of us can really say whether the system will be good or bad.

 

That being said, I think I will like it the way it is once combat gets balanced.