67 replies to this topic

[Karkarov]

I actually think 90% of the talents are pretty awful overall. I would never pick hardly any of them.

Fair enough, but most of them I would pick give Athletics.

[Sensuki]

Same

[Fiebras]

I think the merger is fine, but agree with Sensuki that many of them I would never pick over the class ones and the ones that increase DPS.

I also think this is because they force us to choose between making a class better at what it does and making it better for skill-checks or DPS by giving us just one point to spend on such things every two levels.

I dont think we will have a way to pass the high skill checks without gimping our characters, or at least thats the impression I have when leveling up.

 

I feels like we should have a separate screen or an additional skill/trait point to spend so we can pick one trait which enhances the class and one whick makes it better at skill-check stuff.

Athletics being so important, it makes sense that the class skills give it to you but then I question the purpose of the skill/mechanic altogether for several reasons.

Edited by Fiebras, 02 November 2014 - 01:21 PM.

[prodigydancer]

I still remember what Tim Cain said:

• Non-combat skills are gained separately from combat skills. You shouldn't have to choose between Magic Missile and Herbalism. They should be separate types of abilities, and you should spend different points to get each one. 

And this makes perfect sense.

 

The new system is a huge disappointment. If they'll force me to buy combat and non-combat skills with the same points pool, I'll take combat skills any day of the week. Unless, of course, there are no combat skills worth taking.

Edited by prodigydancer, 02 November 2014 - 02:53 PM.

[wanderon]

 

I built a rogue the other day and had no problem getting mechanics up immediately but then struggled a little getting stealth caught up but not much - the skill only talents with +4 give a good starting base.

Sure, but you had to choose to do one of three things to do that.

 

1: Make them a ranged Rogue, which actually runs counter to a lot of the best Rogue talents.

2: Make them a hard core trap user, which I guess I can see it but I don't enjoy using traps so not an option for me.

3: You gave up a Talent that could have given you a real combat buff (like Weapon Focus, Bloody Slaughter, or Backstab) to pick a straight + tons of Mechanics Talent.

 

Edit: In retrospect it actually makes a ton more sense to make your Ranger a Mechanics expert over your Rogue as Rangers are great with ranged weapons, have a long history with traps, etc etc.  Not sure they get free points in Mechanics just for being a Ranger though unlike Rogue.

 

Also but seriously, having to pick Envenomed Strike just to get every character some stealth (while a good Talent) seems pretty darn lame.  We shouldn't be shoehorned into taking it because it is the only way to get a character Stealth Skill without gimping them.

 

 

Making choices in an RPG is not necessarily a bad thing - I do in fact play ranged rogues quite a bit and even when I play melee rogues they always do some ranged work as well. And I have stopped playing any rangers until they get them a bit more sorted out

 

All I'm saying is there are ways you can use this system to build a decent character but it really sucks that you can ONLY get skills with talents - so for me putting the two together is OK but ONLY if you give us some additional skill only points to spend both at Character creation and also ever few levels along the way - I have a feeling this may be what they have in mind anyway and they are tweaking the skill menu as we speak...

 

If so that would mean you can set your skills as you like and then choose to either augment them with talent choices as well or not as you see fit. That would work for me.

[Shevek]

This system pigeonholes you into picking certain talents to ensure you make skill checks with certain characters. That is not good design. The combat talents should be balanced on their own and people should select them to design their character so they can fight as they wish. I should not be thinking, "man, I really want my rogue to pick up Y talent but I have to take that crappy X talent to get my guy to sneak around instead." Its so bad. I am amazed Sawyer greenlit this. They had the right idea when they stated that out of combat and combat progression would be separate. They need to return to those design principles.

Edited by Shevek, 02 November 2014 - 03:56 PM.

[Fiebras]

The next patch will probably bring improvements if not a completely new system since this was a "test out a new system and see" patch.

[Sensuki]

Next patch won't change a thing. It'll be mostly bug fixes.