Saving the Wizard Class

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

I'm surprised that you're giving most every spell a uniform casting time. With the weapon system design you have, wouldn't it be more more consistent to have spells with graduated casting times? In that way, casting duration and recovery would be proportionate to the power/level of a spell.

I strongly second this.

 

And I third this with great emphasis! It would make for interesting strategic choices and make the various wiz spells more distinct and cool to use (obviously, the cleric spells etc could use the same casting time diversity.

[Captain Shrek]

^This needs to be true in general. It is important that different actions should be differently timed. Interrupting actions need to be faster, while high potential damage/affliction actions need to be slower.

[Quadrone]

 

I'm surprised that you're giving most every spell a uniform casting time. With the weapon system design you have, wouldn't it be more more consistent to have spells with graduated casting times? In that way, casting duration and recovery would be proportionate to the power/level of a spell.

I strongly second this.

 

 

Uniform casting times for all spells? I just assumed casting times hadn't been adjusted for the beta so far.

That would make reacting to a powerful spell being cast rather tricky, no?

[Dark_Ansem]

 

 

I'm surprised that you're giving most every spell a uniform casting time. With the weapon system design you have, wouldn't it be more more consistent to have spells with graduated casting times? In that way, casting duration and recovery would be proportionate to the power/level of a spell.

I strongly second this.

 

 

Uniform casting times for all spells? I just assumed casting times hadn't been adjusted for the beta so far.

That would make reacting to a powerful spell being cast rather tricky, no?

 

 

my support makes it a +5. uniform casting time like dragon age does not make any sense.

[Doppelschwert]

 

- snip -

 

I'm surprised that you're giving most every spell a uniform casting time. With the weapon system design you have, wouldn't it be more more consistent to have spells with graduated casting times? In that way, casting duration and recovery would be proportionate to the power/level of a spell.

 

.....and I don't think that wizards need to be able to do everything.  - snip -

 

Emphasis mine. This is something that I just plainly do not understand. Especially before the skill system was changed, every class could do nearly everything anyway. Stealth, detect secrets/traps, disable traps, craft, overcome athletic/lore/survival challenges, succeed any dialogue check, wear any armor, use any weapon, etc. Every class already has/had the ability to do everything, more or less. How does restricting spell lists prevent any of that?

 

What they do does need to be expansive IMO, with many potential good spells to choose from.....

 

This is probably the most severe complaint about the wizard class. The spell selection does not feel diverse or interesting. Fracturing spell selection across three classes may press them into a very specific roles, but it has worked against this class. Balance issues exacerbate it, but the poor spell selection is truly part of the problem. I think this could be critically alleviated by merging the Chanter invocations, Cipher abilities, and wizard spells into one pool. The classes would still be unmistakable differentiated by their resource mechanics.

 

......and those spells should feel appropriately powerful for the limited per rest use the wizards get out of them (and the time they take to cast).

 

Balance will do much for this class, but it is inevitably secondary to the point above. The other thing is that wizard class is severely hindered by their friendly fire. Even if damage and durations were to be "ideally" balanced, the wizard class would still be a very impinged by their inability to freely target. Contrast to the druid who has roughly 13:14 Foe Only:Friend & Foe areas of effect. The friendly-fire aspect is all the more punitive with PoE's combat that quickly become a scrum, and where engagement severely inhibits arranging your forces in such a way to where the wizard spell will do more good than harm.

 

I don't have anger toward anyone on these forums, but it does bother me that people think I'm trying to sabotage their favorite class, class feature, game feature, etc.  It is not possible for us to make everyone's vision of this game come true.  It's not even possible for us to make everyone's vision of an individual class, race, etc. come true.  When I make decisions about how to balance parts of the game, it's based on the feedback that people give me and how I observe them playing the game (and previous games I've worked on).  I don't place value judgments on how a person plays a game (at least I don't think I do!).  If you want to play the game solo, or with all wizards, or murdering everyone, that's all fine.  It's still my responsibility to make sure that all of these options maintain a good level of player engagement and enjoyment across the spectrum.  Balancing and tuning is an ongoing process, but that's what I'm trying to do.

 

Emphasis mine. Is that response surprising? The magic/spell selection in the IE games was a massive part of what made them what they were and are. Aside from the narrative and general glorious adventure, it's perhaps the most iconic part of the greatest success among the IE games, Baldur's Gate 2. Where gaming really changed after it was the word you use frequently within this quote: "balance".

 

That word is the poison which has largely afflicted cRPGs since 2002 second only to the epithet: "streamlined". Both the individual spell design and the ability to access them all made the IE games have a spell system greater than the sum of their parts because it allowed the player input to utilize them beyond intended or imagined use. This is a major legacy of the IE games. The spell casting in PoE does not appear so much balanced between classes as it does fragmented. This is a stark contrast, and gives the wizard class in particular an unsatisfying and contrived feeling. Is it not worth considering that perhaps the class limitations through spell selection are simply not desirable means or ends?

 

1) Why do you want casting times to be longer for stronger spells? Weapons have unlimited uses while spells have limited uses. Why would you punish a per rest ability even further by making it time inefficient and making armor an even worse choice?

 

2) How does equipment and out of combat skills make every class being able to do the same? They still play very differently while in combat. Why would you restrict stuff that obviously everyone can learn?

 

3) I still don't think that different ressources make them interesting choices. I would pick the one I like best and never look at the others again. Care to explain what my incentive would be to consider them?

 

4) Whats the problem with friendly fire? A lot of spells in the IE games had friendly fire as well. I'm not sure, but doesn't intellect increase only the good AoE of the spells, or has that not been implemented yet? E.g. it increases foe only area for bad effects and friend only area for good effects.

 

5) From my personal experience, the magic system was a highly polarizing feature of the game, especially in Throne of Bhaal. I have a lot of friends that stopped playing the game because they were not able to beat Draconis. Now you can call them noobs and discredit them all you want, but that doesn't matter that they bought the games, liked them and that they would be buying this game as well if they had the time to actually play it. I don't think there is such a great majority of people that played the game and actually understood the magic system to its fullest intent, yet were able to utilize that knowledge. Even if you argue for the members of this forum, a lot of people won't actually play the wizard as their main character.

 

Bonus: Josh commented in another thread that they would like to implement contingency/sequence spells and the like in a future installment.

[Yonjuro]

 Very good response!

 

 

 

Casting times....

 

I'm surprised that you're giving most every spell a uniform casting time. With the weapon system design you have, wouldn't it be more more consistent to have spells with graduated casting times? In that way, casting duration and recovery would be proportionate to the power/level of a spell.

 

 I agree with this, but I think the most important point is this one:

 

....

 

The magic/spell selection in the IE games was a massive part of what made them what they were and are. Aside from the narrative and general glorious adventure, it's perhaps the most iconic part of the greatest success among the IE games, Baldur's Gate 2. Where gaming really changed after it was the word you use frequently within this quote: "balance".

 

That word is the poison which has largely afflicted cRPGs since 2002 second only to the epithet: "streamlined". Both the individual spell design and the ability to access them all made the IE games have a spell system greater than the sum of their parts because it allowed the player input to utilize them beyond intended or imagined use. This is a major legacy of the IE games. The spell casting in PoE does not appear so much balanced between classes as it does fragmented. This is a stark contrast, and gives the wizard class in particular an unsatisfying and contrived feeling. Is it not worth considering that perhaps the class limitations through spell selection are simply not desirable means or ends?

 

 Sure variable casting times are good and all, but:

 

  PoE will probably be received as, at least, a cool retro game but whether it ends there or is received  as a masterpiece that people will be playing a decade or two later depends on this second point. BG2, whatever flaws it had, nailed the spell system in that the system as a whole was much more than the sum of its parts.

 

 That said, I'm still ok with separate spell lists for the different classes. The make or break for PoE (break, as in, failed to become a new classic, not failed to be a fun retro flavored game; I expect the latter but hope for more), will be whether the gameplay has enough complexity to keep it interesting several playthroughs later.

 

 By 'complexity' I don't mean it should be hard to figure out how to play, I mean, you start off using spells/abilities well enough to advance in the game, but that you can find new, more powerful, things to do with them as you get better at the game. 

[Yonjuro]

 

5) From my personal experience, the magic system was a highly polarizing feature of the game, especially in Throne of Bhaal. I have a lot of friends that stopped playing the game because they were not able to beat Draconis. Now you can call them noobs and discredit them all you want, but that doesn't matter that they bought the games, liked them and that they would be buying this game as well if they had the time to actually play it. I don't think there is such a great majority of people that played the game and actually understood the magic system to its fullest intent, yet were able to utilize that knowledge. Even if you argue for the members of this forum, a lot of people won't actually play the wizard as their main character.

 

 If your friends got from Candlekeep to Draconis' lair they aren't exactly noobs. It could be that a given fight was too hard but, I think the magic system is an orthogonal issue. 

 

 Draconis was beatable without  getting too deep into the magic system - by then, you had high levels summons to sic on him (if you had a mage, cleric or paladin in your party), spike traps (if you had a thief or bard), greater whirlwind (if you had any warrior types). Etc.

 

 There are lots of tools available and you don't need to stack spells in any particular way to beat the encounter.

 

 Again, it's possible that that encounter should have been turned down a bit, but I think that's a separate discussion.

 

 Draconis is too hard so, make the magic system less potent? I don't think it follows.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Yonjuro

[Quetzalcoatl]

Uh guys? I think he's talking about the casting times for one tier of spells, not all the spells in the game.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Quetzalcoatl

[Yonjuro]

Uh guys? I think he's talking about the casting times for one tier of spells, not all the spells in the game.

 

 

 Hmm, I think you're right. The quote says that he is changing things that now take 3 seconds to take 2 seconds instead. It doesn't say that every spell will take 2 seconds.

[gnoemli]

 

I don't have anger toward anyone on these forums, but it does bother me that people think I'm trying to sabotage their favorite class, class feature, game feature, etc.  It is not possible for us to make everyone's vision of this game come true.  It's not even possible for us to make everyone's vision of an individual class, race, etc. come true.  When I make decisions about how to balance parts of the game, it's based on the feedback that people give me and how I observe them playing the game (and previous games I've worked on).  I don't place value judgments on how a person plays a game (at least I don't think I do!).  If you want to play the game solo, or with all wizards, or murdering everyone, that's all fine.  It's still my responsibility to make sure that all of these options maintain a good level of player engagement and enjoyment across the spectrum.  Balancing and tuning is an ongoing process, but that's what I'm trying to do.

 

Emphasis mine. Is that response surprising? The magic/spell selection in the IE games was a massive part of what made them what they were and are. Aside from the narrative and general glorious adventure, it's perhaps the most iconic part of the greatest success among the IE games, Baldur's Gate 2. Where gaming really changed after it was the word you use frequently within this quote: "balance".

 

That word is the poison which has largely afflicted cRPGs since 2002 second only to the epithet: "streamlined". Both the individual spell design and the ability to access them all made the IE games have a spell system greater than the sum of their parts because it allowed the player input to utilize them beyond intended or imagined use. This is a major legacy of the IE games. The spell casting in PoE does not appear so much balanced between classes as it does fragmented. This is a stark contrast, and gives the wizard class in particular an unsatisfying and contrived feeling. Is it not worth considering that perhaps the class limitations through spell selection are simply not desirable means or ends?

 

You Man speak out of my soul, i couldn't explain it better even if i tried. All we want is beeing able to create our own version of the magic using Class (Chanter, Cipher, Wizard), a posibility more to give it our own touch and thats one of the most important and challenging parts in this kind of Game.

Edited November 20, 2014 by gnoemli

[Lephys]

Yeah, last I heard (maybe it changed and I just missed the memo?) was that all abilities, spells or no, had three tiered cast-lengths: short, medium, and long.

 

Or, originally I thought it was cast time. It may now be that it's the amount of recovery time after using it? Or some combination of both.

 

All I know is, three tiers were mentioned, a while back, in regard to the time-cost of ability usage.

 

Oh, and that's not including instant abilities, I suppose. So, yeah, I think the "standard" cast time Josh referred to is like, the short cast time? So there should still be a medium and a long (4 seconds and 6 seconds, or maybe 5 seconds and 8 seconds? *shrug*)

[Stun]

1) Why do you want casting times to be longer for stronger spells? Weapons have unlimited uses while spells have limited uses. Why would you punish a per rest ability even further by making it time inefficient and making armor an even worse choice?

I think many of us are operating under the assumption that Magic will be more powerful than a friggin sword or spear - and thus it should come with more restrictions (or 'Punishments', as you call them), as a matter of course.

 

The suggestion was that the more powerful/higher level the spell is, the longer it should take a wizard to cast it. Reason being that magic is supposed to be serious business. Not the trivial, "pew pew", bolt-action nonsense it has become in today's modern "RPGs". Or to put it another way, It should take my wizard a LOT longer to magically open up an interdimensional gate to the 9th plane of Hell to summon forth a Pit Fiend, than to simply cast magic missile. Yes?

Edited November 21, 2014 by Stun

[Captain Shrek]

Yes. 

 

In fact, it makes even more sense if all the spells except the once that are *pew pew* were slow. Anything that forces a save for a meta effect would probably qualify as a non *pew pew*. 

[Namutree]

I'm sure others have pointed this out, but I'll state my opinion regardless.

 

There seem to be a lot of people comparing the magic of poe to BG2. That's kinda an unfair contest. I'd rather compare it to vanilla BG1 where I feel the comparison is more reasonable. I'll compare wizards of poe2 (Assuming we get one) with BG2 sure, but not until then.

[Doppelschwert]

 

1) Why do you want casting times to be longer for stronger spells? Weapons have unlimited uses while spells have limited uses. Why would you punish a per rest ability even further by making it time inefficient and making armor an even worse choice?

I think many of us are operating under the assumption that Magic will be more powerful than a friggin sword or spear - and thus it should come with more restrictions (or 'Punishments', as you call them), as a matter of course.

 

The suggestion was that the more powerful/higher level the spell is, the longer it should take a wizard to cast it. Reason being that magic is supposed to be serious business. Not the trivial, "pew pew", bolt-action nonsense it has become in today's modern "RPGs". Or to put it another way, It should take my wizard a LOT longer to magically open up an interdimensional gate to the 9th plane of Hell to summon forth a Pit Fiend, than to simply cast magic missile. Yes?

 

I was operating under the assumption that the assertion that the wizards role is an almost pure magical damage dealer atm is justified and was thinking about damaging spells. You wouldn't want an improved fireball spell thats twice as damaging as fireball and then have it have twice the casting time, because then DPS is the same and you actually end up with the damage output equivalent of a sword or spear. Given the focus on damage spells, I'd at least expect the wizard to be able to spike damage very high for a short duration if his spells are limited per rest, that's where I was coming from. A higher level spell damage spell should grant more dps and increasing the casting time is working against that.

[archangel979]

I'm sure others have pointed this out, but I'll state my opinion regardless.

 

There seem to be a lot of people comparing the magic of poe to BG2. That's kinda an unfair contest. I'd rather compare it to vanilla BG1 where I feel the comparison is more reasonable. I'll compare wizards of poe2 (Assuming we get one) with BG2 sure, but not until then.

It is also not fair to compare it with vanilla BG1 as that was first such game for Interplay/Bioware and OE has experience from making such games now. It is not fair to compare PoE with BG2 size or AI complexity but it is fair to compare to features BG2 had like big spells lists, lots of classes and kits and so on. Putting stronghold into PoE tells you even OE rather compare with BG2 than BG1.

[Namutree]

 

I'm sure others have pointed this out, but I'll state my opinion regardless.

 

There seem to be a lot of people comparing the magic of poe to BG2. That's kinda an unfair contest. I'd rather compare it to vanilla BG1 where I feel the comparison is more reasonable. I'll compare wizards of poe2 (Assuming we get one) with BG2 sure, but not until then.

It is also not fair to compare it with vanilla BG1 as that was first such game for Interplay/Bioware and OE has experience from making such games now. It is not fair to compare PoE with BG2 size or AI complexity but it is fair to compare to features BG2 had like big spells lists, lots of classes and kits and so on. Putting stronghold into PoE tells you even OE rather compare with BG2 than BG1.

 

Putting in a stronghold doesn't tell you much really. The first game in a series always has less resources since they actually have to create the mechanics. This was true of BG1, and it is true of poe. BG2 was only able to be so epic because there was more time/resources spent improving the game mechanics since the basic structure was already done. 

 

The primary factor isn't experience; it resources. Unless the new game has a huge budget; comparing any new rpg series' first installment to BG2 is unfair.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Namutree

[archangel979]

 

 

I'm sure others have pointed this out, but I'll state my opinion regardless.

 

There seem to be a lot of people comparing the magic of poe to BG2. That's kinda an unfair contest. I'd rather compare it to vanilla BG1 where I feel the comparison is more reasonable. I'll compare wizards of poe2 (Assuming we get one) with BG2 sure, but not until then.

It is also not fair to compare it with vanilla BG1 as that was first such game for Interplay/Bioware and OE has experience from making such games now. It is not fair to compare PoE with BG2 size or AI complexity but it is fair to compare to features BG2 had like big spells lists, lots of classes and kits and so on. Putting stronghold into PoE tells you even OE rather compare with BG2 than BG1.

 

Putting in a stronghold doesn't tell you much really. The first game in a series always has less resources since they actually have to create the mechanics. This was true of BG1, and it is true of poe. BG2 was only able to be so epic because there was more time/resources spent improving the game mechanics since the basic structure was already done. 

 

The primary factor isn't experience; it resources. Unless the new game has a huge budget; comparing any new rpg series' first installment to BG2 is unfair.

 

But you are wrong here. While resources are always important I read so many times how devs would say that with a good team that works well together everything goes faster and better.

I would expect OE to have such teams.

[Namutree]

 

 

 

I'm sure others have pointed this out, but I'll state my opinion regardless.

 

There seem to be a lot of people comparing the magic of poe to BG2. That's kinda an unfair contest. I'd rather compare it to vanilla BG1 where I feel the comparison is more reasonable. I'll compare wizards of poe2 (Assuming we get one) with BG2 sure, but not until then.

It is also not fair to compare it with vanilla BG1 as that was first such game for Interplay/Bioware and OE has experience from making such games now. It is not fair to compare PoE with BG2 size or AI complexity but it is fair to compare to features BG2 had like big spells lists, lots of classes and kits and so on. Putting stronghold into PoE tells you even OE rather compare with BG2 than BG1.

 

Putting in a stronghold doesn't tell you much really. The first game in a series always has less resources since they actually have to create the mechanics. This was true of BG1, and it is true of poe. BG2 was only able to be so epic because there was more time/resources spent improving the game mechanics since the basic structure was already done. 

 

The primary factor isn't experience; it resources. Unless the new game has a huge budget; comparing any new rpg series' first installment to BG2 is unfair.

 

But you are wrong here. While resources are always important I read so many times how devs would say that with a good team that works well together everything goes faster and better.

I would expect OE to have such teams.

 

So did Bioware.

[archangel979]

No. For bioware BG1 was their first real game. They were a team of newbie developers.

[Namutree]

No. For bioware BG1 was their first real game. They were a team of newbie developers.

They were a good team that worked well together. Even as newbies they were as good as the best teams. All anyone could hope to do is match them. Bioware were once very special developers.

 

Before the dark times... Before DA2...

[redneckdevil]

 

I'm sure others have pointed this out, but I'll state my opinion regardless.

 

There seem to be a lot of people comparing the magic of poe to BG2. That's kinda an unfair contest. I'd rather compare it to vanilla BG1 where I feel the comparison is more reasonable. I'll compare wizards of poe2 (Assuming we get one) with BG2 sure, but not until then.

It is also not fair to compare it with vanilla BG1 as that was first such game for Interplay/Bioware and OE has experience from making such games now. It is not fair to compare PoE with BG2 size or AI complexity but it is fair to compare to features BG2 had like big spells lists, lots of classes and kits and so on. Putting stronghold into PoE tells you even OE rather compare with BG2 than BG1.

The thing is i think it is fair to compare poe to bg1 of the spell lists. Bg2 had u starting out at what lvl? So it started u out at a much higher level so by then u SHOULD have big spell lists that keep getting bigger. At lvl 1 though, wizards in bg1 and in tabletop arent very powerful at all if u dont spam the rest mechanicdue to spell list and the reason WHY wizards become very powerful at later levels is because mainly of the size of their spell list and how many they could cast before they needed to rest.

 

Tbh as Josh is a tabletop player, if u go into any tabletop forums it has became acceptable that wizards will eventually break games and be more powerful than any martial by far. Its accepted that wizards will outshine any martial and most other classes once they get enough spells under their belt. I believe that is why wizards are being brought down so that they are automatically gonna outshine any other class and hes trying to keep other classes on same footing.

[Stun]

DPS

There's our first problem right here.

 

If magic has to be conceptualized and designed only within the constricting confines of soullessly gamey MMO and ARPG terminology, then this entire discussion is hopeless.

 

You don't get the magic behind magic. And I lack the communication skills to explain it to you. Suffice to say, we're ALL going to need to re-condition our minds and try to erase the DECADE of damage that games like WoW and Dragon Age have caused to the entire RPG genre.

[Stun]

It is also not fair to compare it with vanilla BG1 as that was first such game for Interplay/Bioware and OE has experience from making such games now. It is not fair to compare PoE with BG2 size or AI complexity but it is fair to compare to features BG2 had like big spells lists, lots of classes and kits and so on. Putting stronghold into PoE tells you even OE rather compare with BG2 than BG1.

-Not to mention the fact that BG1's level cap was only 8 or 9, while PoE's will be 12

-And not to mention the fact that PoE's Spell levels will go up to 6, while BG1's only went up to 5.

 

A more accurate comparison would be vanilla IWD1 (before its expansions), where your character could only reach about 13th level

Edited November 21, 2014 by Stun

[Kjaamor]

It's no evidence towards anything, just of minor note and vaguely on topic, but I recently restarted BG2.

 

My previous BG2 playthrough was using NPCs an focusing upon the magic classes (PC Sorceror, Viconia, Aerie, Jan/Imoen, Nalia, Edwin). It was really enjoyable.

 

This one was all melee-based used a custom party (Longsword and Shield Paladin [undead Hunter], Greatsword wielding Paladin [inquisitor], Staff wielding Kensai, Dual Katana wielding Swashbuckler->Fighter dual, Dual Mace wielding Cleric/Ranger, Halberd Wielding Mage->Fighter dual (In order to use Protection Scrolls)).

 

I lost interest by level 2 of Irenicus' dungeon.