Pacing, class complexity, longevity

[Odd Hermit]

My initial reaction to the combat has not been great, although it feels like there's a lot of potential in the actual ability and class designs. I admit beforehand I haven't played a lot yet and my ignorance might end up being the only real issue here but I'm going to give my 2 cents anyway:

 

 

#1. Issue for me is pacing. Combat feels too fast and erratic. And even with autopause options set, it just feels a bit too jerky - not fun to watch your characters with frequent interrupting pauses between short bursts of action.

 

I think a speed between the slow and normal speeds should be available, plus you should be able to set it to automatically switch to a certain default speed in combat.

 

Then there's the classes which I will divide into two variations: RPG fighter and RPG wizard. That's certainly an oversimplification when it comes to all the varied spells/abilities and so on, but when it comes to the very basics we've got: Simple guy who fights good all the time(fighter), and complicated guy who's more versatile but then burns out and becomes useless(wizard).

 

The obvious and simple solution to "RPG" fighter is just give them more abilities. PoE isn't too bad, but I'm still feeling like Fighter, Paladin, Rogue in particular are a little too boring and auto-attack bot-ish.

 

Granted, having a party full of complicated classes can also just be too much micromanagement, but I just feel like allowing classes to be nudged toward a middle ground away from the extremes, with more trade-off options in character building between passive and active, would be nice.

 

I think the casters - Priest, Druid, Wizard - would particularly benefit from the ability to choose a few spells as "per encounter" for each spell level every time they gain access to a new spell tier. Doesn't have to be a lot of spells or uses per encounter, even. Perhaps this could even be an optional system where you trade some spells per rest to buy the spells per encounter. This would just help with improving their longevity while making builds more unique.

 

 

[Gromnir]

it is our belief that the major pacing issue folks is dealing with is that you start at level 5 equivalent. am admitting our first combat were confused. subsequent combats has likewise been confused, but what has disconcerted us more since our first couple play experiences is that we frequent cannot tell friend from friend and friend from foe... and we got no idea which foes is under the influence o' which debuffs. that being said, combat speed slowed down considerably once we figured out what each class could/should do. that learning curve to be understanding the capabilities o' the classes were multiplied by the fact that we started with level 5 characters. at least, it is our belief that pacing is more a matter o' info overload than anything else simply 'cause game has slowed considerably for us on subsequent beta plays.

 

nevertheless, there is a great deal o' micro-management with combat. that appeals to us. then again, am admitting that some micromanagement is related to our aforementioned learning curve comments. am suspecting that use o' some abilities will become nearly reflexive once we get a better handle on combat. sure, we will still be micro-managing, but the complexity will decrease a great deal making the micro-management less cumbersome. 

 

as for paladin, fighter and rogue suffering from auto-attack, we don't get that at all. the fighter, rogue and mage do not throw many surprises at us from a design perspective-- they are what we expected. mages get lot o' spells, and very familiar spells. fighters is good in combat and can take hits. we use rogues as flankers and disablers. *shrug* these classes is not surprising us with what they can do, but then again, we sorta expect them to be the archetypal options on an otherwise diverse class list.

 

that being said, we have not utilized fighter, rogue or paladin in an auto-attack mode in combat.  with the per-encounter abilities o' each class, we typical find that there is always an option we can be considering the use o' in any given combat. sure, some abilities is limited to use-per-day, and so we may choose auto-attack instead, but, we always has options and we don't feel limited to auto-attack.

 

however, and this is a Big however, we observed that with a paladin as our main character, combats lasted longer than with any other character we has played thus far, and those options include: chanter, cipher, druid, mage, ranger, priest and barbarian. our paladin buffing o' fellow party members were, no doubt, very useful, but it simply took longer to dispatch any foe with a paladin as our main character. that being said, it is possible that Gromnir had his head lodged up his kiester and were playing the paladin all wrong. nevertheless, the feel we had for the paladin were that it did not contribute relative as much to our offensive power as any other class we played. 

 

as for druid and mages, well, with so many casters, we believe you may get pretty much anything you want simply by choosing a different class. want your abilities to be per-encounter? play a cipher. want particular powerful offensive spells? play a druid. wanna simply roll-stomp everything? play a chanter. *shrug* am not thinking the developer want to make all casters capable o' many per-encounter abilities... that is why they got so much caster class diversity.

 

'course, priests are, once again, heal-bots. oh, sure, they gots many useful buffs and offensive spells, but you are likely gonna want at least one healer-type in your party, and the priest is your only option. 

 

just random thoughts inspired by your post.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited August 31, 2014 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

however, and this is a Big however, we observed that with a paladin as our main character, combats lasted longer than with any other character we has played thus far, and those options include: chanter, cipher, druid, mage, ranger, priest and barbarian. our paladin buffing o' fellow party members were, no doubt, very useful, but it simply took longer to dispatch any foe with a paladin as our main character. that being said, it is possible that Gromnir had his head lodged up his kiester and were playing the paladin all wrong. nevertheless, the feel we had for the paladin were that it did not contribute relative as much to our offensive power as any other class we played. 

Huh, I've had that problem as well. The Monk I rolled with managed to dispatch enemies much faster than the Paladin, and seemed to take less damage as well.

[Sensuki]

I posted a thread with similar conclusions about combat here

 

I don't really think the combat is too fast though, currently there's many things contributing to the illusion of it being fast.

 

I also posted similar-ish conclusions about classes in my video here and also in PrimeJunta's version review thread.

 

I also feel that the Fighter and Rogue (at least) are auto attack bot-ish, but I think that these issues might have more to do with a few factors other than the classes themselves - movement pausing recovery and having a pidgeonholed role in combat.

 

I disagree about more per-encounter spells for Wizards, Druids, Priests etc as that makes combat repetitive. Characters will literally spam all of their per encounter abilities at the start of every fight and that makes the combat boring, repetitive and predictable and that's not good. 

 

The length of the adventuring day is currently pretty short, and people are just spamming their spells in the few combats that they undertake before resting, so more testing and tweaking needs to be done to get the length of the adventuring day relative to health values correct so that we can get the number of per rest abilities to actually feel like a strategical resource.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

In re the adventuring day, I noticed that if you play a bit more cautiously and frugally, fatigue will kick in about when I would otherwise have started to run low on health and/or spells. I.e. it appears to be intended this way. It should be tuned up a bit.

[Sensuki]

[jackie_chan_wtf.jpg]

[PrimeJunta]

You haven't seen it? Happened twice, around when I'd be entering Dyrford Dungeon. Strangely only for the PC. First minor fatigue with little penalties, then major fatigue which was not a joke.

[Gromnir]

as an aside, Gromnir is getting very creative with rogue escape ability, particularly when coupled with a cipher. cipher abilities frequent target an ally, so escape (1 per encounter) is proving to be an essential ability for us.  perhaps surprisingly, crippling strike works with ranged or melee weapons, so we typical use 2x per encounter as well. regardless, rogue is definite Not an auto-attack candidate  in our beta plays.

 

HA! good Fun!

[Sensuki]

You haven't seen it? Happened twice, around when I'd be entering Dyrford Dungeon. Strangely only for the PC. First minor fatigue with little penalties, then major fatigue which was not a joke.

 

No, just that designing the game for such a god damn short adventuring day where you don't even stress your class resources is p. bad

[prodigydancer]

First minor fatigue with little penalties, then major fatigue which was not a joke.

Pillars of Resternity.

[zeee]

if i recall corectly it was said at some point in an update that if your wizard was of a high enough level his first level spells would become per encounter instead of per rest is this still the case? or has this been changed?

[Sensuki]

read your pms matt516