Sensuki's Suggestions #021: Talents AND Feats

[Pray]

I think your idea is sound but choosing between two pools of perks seems like it could be confusing to some players.

I didn't know players were made of stupid with brains formed out of pudding.

[Shevek]

Well, you would be surprised. In my opinion, it would be better to properly balance the talents and simply have players select them more often (like every other level).

[W.MacKinnon]

I think this leads into Mr. Sawyers whole premise of rules creation during his posts. Your call for separation of the talents into talents/feats departs from the intended gameplay mechanic he pitched. The current rules work as he intended them, by that a player who finds they have to many modal abilities as it is, or doesn't like hitting a button every couple of seconds can choose the passive talents instead of the extra use of ability, or alternate use, new ability etc. Basically playing like an IE fighter, while being another class or what have you. (You guys hopefully get what I mean, be a Paladin/Chanter/etc. WIth the party AI doing the tactical lifting >Positioning, etc.)

 

Personally I can see me, making the tank of my party take mostly passives, and my casters loading up on modal abilities. I think this system works as he intended, and with 6 party members a vast array of talents can be picked. If the rules allows a bunch of talents, not only will a great deal of them need to be created; it also would likely lessen their effect on gameplay difficulty. (Basically they would affect gameplay less, maybe lower percentages or something.)

 

I don't see the current iteration as necessarily needing changing. It works as intended I think.

[Sensuki]

Not quite. It could be if you balanced all of the changes. Splitting them into two distinct pools would be a way of allowing smaller benefits and larger ones to exist together in different spaces without offering 'trap choices' which is something that they want to avoid.

 

You don't write a 'how to balance an RPG' and then renege on what you said when it's convenient.

Edited September 28, 2014 by Sensuki

[Kjaamor]

The biggest issue for me with the levelling up system is that within the beta most of the class level ups feel utterly interchangeable. My priest and fighter level up at the same time, and yet it feels like the best option is just to select weapon focus for both.

 

But I always felt that was an issue with the crpg 3.5 system, to be honest, so maybe that's true to IWD2.

 

In other news, I would have gladly liked to see differing exp systems, a la BG, rather than the fixed levelling of NWN2, which I think adds to the disappointment of levelling up. I'm not suggesting that's a majority opinion, mind.

[Doppelschwert]

The idea seems nice on paper, but assuming a char can reach up to 30 lvls in later installments, how would that system hold up?

Given that there are 11 classes, this sounds almost as a bit too much customization overall if you want to properly implement and balance enough talents/feats that you can still feel like your char actually had a lot of choice at such a high level. I also feel that there are only so many things that you can implement as talent/feats when you still want to make them feel unique and separate from each other.

 

I love customization, but if there aren't supposed to be a lot of bad choices like in DnD, I don't see this working out with expansions in mind.

 

For example, I think talents should be class specific, and if you want to feel like you are really given a choice, I think you need at least twice as many talents as there are slots for each class. For this game alone that would boil down to 4 * 2 * 11 = 88 distinct talents. You can do with less, but I'd rather have less slots with relatively more choices than more slots and relatively less choices.

 

If you treat talents/feats as the same pool, as it is now, then you have automatically more choices compared to slots, so it's easier to feel like you really made a selection out of a great pool, which I think is important in customization.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[SergeantHans]

Instead of adding feats why not make some of the class abilities optional. For instance instead of every fighter starting with knockdown you could get several choices of abilities and more would unlock on later levels. Rogues could for example choose between 1/use encounter "Blinding strike" or 2/use encounter "Crippling strike" etc.

 

That would really increase flexibiliy in my opinion.

 

Since no one have commented i post this again. What do you guys think?

[dunehunter]

I totally agree with you. If we get more talents/feats or whatever its called, every classes will be less restricted to their role, it provides more options so we can build a tank fighter or a dps fighter or controller-type fighter. We gain too less talents that classes lacks flexiblity

Edited October 4, 2014 by dunehunter

[C2B]

Related (From Tumblr)

 

kristibrud666 said: PoE has a lot of activity from all party characters. Much more than any Infinity Engine game - and as I understand it you're not even done with adding new talents. One consequence of this is the frequent pausing required. In the backer beta, it feels a little tiresome, and that's just with the amount of pausing to defeat beetles. An equivalent fight in BG2 would be maybe two pauses for a couple of spells or somethingAre you alright with this or is this something you're looking to addresssomehow?

Tim, George (Wang), and I have been implementing a (very) large number of new Talents. We waited until we had Backer Beta feedback before designing many of them so we could find common ways in which people wanted to distinguish their characters. Another goal with the Talent system was to allow people to bias their characters more heavily toward active or passive maintenance.

Right now I’m rearranging the order in which fighters receive Abilities and Talents as they gain levels. With these new arrangements, it should be easy to build (for example) a fighter with all passive and modal Abilities or, if you really feel like it, a fighter that has a large number of active Abilities. I believe this will give people the maintenance flexibility they want in individual characters and their parties as a whole.

[dunehunter]

 

Instead of adding feats why not make some of the class abilities optional. For instance instead of every fighter starting with knockdown you could get several choices of abilities and more would unlock on later levels. Rogues could for example choose between 1/use encounter "Blinding strike" or 2/use encounter "Crippling strike" etc.

 

That would really increase flexibiliy in my opinion.

 

Since no one have commented i post this again. What do you guys think?

 

 

I would like it to be done this way, now when everytime a class is leveled up, it will get an ability, i would like to see more options for this too, so we can choose different abilities when we level up.

[Lephys]

Instead of adding feats why not make some of the class abilities optional. For instance instead of every fighter starting with knockdown you could get several choices of abilities and more would unlock on later levels. Rogues could choose between 1/use encounter "Blinding strike" or 2/use encounter "Crippling strike" etc.

 

That would really increase flexibiliy in my opinion.

This! So much!

 

Think about it... Wizard's spells are already divided up into levels, and you pick whatever you want. You don't get FORCED to start with Firebolt, then gain a specific new spell, WoW-style, every couple of levels.

 

Why not structure the other classes' abilities the same way? Just go "These Fighter abilities/talents are all about on-par with each other, so they'll be tier 1. These will be tier 2, etc." Then let the Fighter pick.

 

That, and, honestly, whatever they do, I think the current Weapon Focus talents should just be moved to character creation, and/or tied to cultural choices. Sure, they might only give you +5 or something instead of +10, since you start with them, but it just feels like more of a thing that would be inherent to your character. Why would your character suddenly acquire proficiency with 5+ different weapons? They wouldn't.

 

Then, the actual selectable talents at level-ups could simply include some array of further specializations for individual weapons. You could even have pairings, at that point, as an intermediate level. "You're even better with this melee weapon and this ranged weapon," for example. Then, have a third tier that's weapon masteries.

 

Like I said... however that's handled, the "you're better with all these thematically-grouped weapons" option needs to be a character-creation option. It's too weighted, otherwise (OR pointless, depending on how you view weapon switching), and it doesn't make much sense to gain such a thing spontaneously during adventuring.

[Silent Winter]

In other news, I would have gladly liked to see differing exp systems, a la BG, rather than the fixed levelling of NWN2, which I think adds to the disappointment of levelling up. I'm not suggesting that's a majority opinion, mind.

I agree with this - I hated levelling everyone at the same time in NWN2 OC - made it a chore when we levelled up, rather than the buzz of hearing that sound and seeing the '+' in BG.

I seem to recall MOTB was better for this since everyone started at different xp levels (?) so levelling up was staggered.

 

 

Instead of adding feats why not make some of the class abilities optional. For instance instead of every fighter starting with knockdown you could get several choices of abilities and more would unlock on later levels. Rogues could for example choose between 1/use encounter "Blinding strike" or 2/use encounter "Crippling strike" etc.

 

That would really increase flexibiliy in my opinion.

Good idea - it would be nice to have the option of more customisation from the start (inexperienced players (or those who can't be bothered) can accept a 'default' or 'recommended' selection a la NWN2).

[AlekzanderZ]

Here the way I would like to see it for every classes.

 

Level 1 Select a martial art background. Select a level 1 class ability from a small pool.

 

Level 2 Select a level 1 class ability from the same pool.

 

Level 3 Select a Talent.

 

Level 4 Select a level 2 class ability from a pool. ( level 1 abilites are no more accessible)

 

Level 5 Select a level 2 class ability.

 

Level 6 Select a talent.

 

...

 

In every ability pool there's some passive/active offensive/defensive abilities. It give the possibilty for a low maintenance character and some defensive/offensive directions.

 

Talents are general but strong advantages that reinforce even more the direction you want to give to your character.

[IndiraLightfoot]

AlekzanderZ: Something like that would do the trick, indeed!

 

The good thing is that Josh is now on the prowl for a neat extended and improved talent/feat system, so chances are good that these posts will be read and considered by the devs.

[Ineth]

Another goal with the Talent system was to allow people to bias their characters more heavily toward active or passive maintenance.

 

Yeah that's a design goal which Josh has stated multiple times before, and imo it's a good one.

 

Separating active and passive talents into two separate pools and making every character take a fixed number of each, would destroy that flexibility.

 

So it's a  -1  from me to this particular Sensuki Suggestion.

[Sensuki]

That's not what I said though and anyone who got that out of what I said did not read my post correctly. Currently there's an imbalance between the power of certain talents against others. An example would be Weapon Focus - +10 Accuracy with weapon group - pretty good.

 

Then there's stuff like Penetrating Blast, for the Wizard, which reduces the DT for Blast attacks, which does basically nothing.

 

If there is going to be severe talent imbalance, then the more powerful talents that are like class abilities should be separated from the Talents that are relatively minor, more in line with moderate-weak D&D feats.

 

They are doing something to change character advancement at the moment, but their example listed with the Fighter seemed like they were focusing on the wrong class.

[archangel979]

Talents and feats are not needed it two things are fixed:

1. Racial bonuses are meaningful - these bonuses are kind of like traits. In fallout you didn't get to chose your race so you chose your level 1 traits. 

2. Class abilities allow you at least two choices at each level up. Instead of feats the class options can be rolled into class abilities.

Edited October 6, 2014 by archangel979

[Pray]

AlekzanderZ: Something like that would do the trick, indeed!

 

The good thing is that Josh is now on the prowl for a neat extended and improved talent/feat system, so chances are good that these posts will be read and considered by the devs.

Thing I dont like about this level is you're wondering "well what abilties will I get later and will this choice cripple me later?