Saving the Wizard Class

[prodigydancer]

You could retain class balance while still having overwhelming magic, hard counters and chess like wizard duels with move and countermove. Only now the other classes could take part in those duels as well, turning BG2 wizard duels  in PoE party duels.

This is a very good suggestion. Various classes and monsters should have different defenses and we also need tools to break through those defenses. In BG2 we had to deal with enemies that had magic resistance, high AC, high saving throws, a plethora of arcane and divine protective spells, etc. Only a few had everything but almost everyone had something. So often we had to breach their defenses before we could CC or harm them. That's what PoE combat should look like and a careful redesign of wizard class could be a step in the right direction.

Edited November 16, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Dark_Ansem]

Wizard duels are brilliant!

[No idea]

"You guys think its great to have an omnipotent class that is basically able to do anything in a game, and that is fine. I think it's not much fun because that makes it a clear better choice every single time, devaluing everything else in the game."

This +1000

Just listen to yourselves , how can you possibly expect Obsidan to take you seriously. You are upset because you can't make an all powerful god like character. Balance in this game is probably important to a lot of people. Obsidan is a business and they have to make sure that the game has a wider appeal than a couple of hardcore gamers hanging around a forum. The bottom line , is that the people posting here - including me, do not speak for the majority of players. It's critical that Obsidan (and other companies) understand this, and make a game that will sell. So yeah, they are not likely to jump every time a few loud people cry.

In bg or iwd a high level mage was above most other classes at the same level (but even the mage had a counter class:monks) and it was a very, very fun and good game. The game will sell if it is fun to play, not if it is balanced. If most people think that only balance can be fun, ok, but i think a miriad of examples tell different (bg serie being just one)

[Strill]

 

And Imprison is easily reversed with Freedom spell. What, you don't have it? Why are are you attacking someone with Imprison then?

 

Because there is no way to know which spells the enemy has until fighting against them, apart from meta-knowledge. You could always have these kind of counterspells memorized out of paranoia, but then again, you are sacrificing spell slots for the rest of the 80% of battles where the spell is not cast by the enemy.

 

Apart from that, consider that in an actual ADnD game, strong spells require materials to be cast which are often rare and expensive for higher level spells. This restriction balances the strong but occasional spellcasting, but it is not implemented in any of the IE games, so spells tend to be way stronger than they were supposed to be in the original material. Lore dictates that wizards are powerful, but also that they spent most of their time to research spells and searching for components. There is some kind of trade off which makes it ok, but that's not in any of the IE games, basically stripping all disadvantages from them.

 

So then the game should give you hints as to what spells enemy spellcasters have. Make the encounter a puzzle, and place hints and clues throughout the dungeon which give you an idea what to expect from enemies.

[constantine]

 

You could retain class balance while still having overwhelming magic, hard counters and chess like wizard duels with move and countermove. Only now the other classes could take part in those duels as well, turning BG2 wizard duels in PoE party duels.

This is a very good suggestion. Various classes and monsters should have different defenses and we also need tools to break through those defenses. In BG2 we had to deal with enemies that had magic resistance, high AC, high saving throws, a plethora of arcane and divine protective spells, etc. Only a few had everything but almost everyone had something. So often we had to breach their defenses before we could CC or harm them. That's what PoE combat should look like and a careful redesign of wizard class could be a step in the right direction.

You (and I) can hope all you like, but Pillars is never gonna be that kind of game.

 

Best we can hope for to come out of this thread is for Obsidian to (at least) buff up the Wizard Class a little.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

 

 

 

You could retain class balance while still having overwhelming magic, hard counters and chess like wizard duels with move and countermove. Only now the other classes could take part in those duels as well, turning BG2 wizard duels in PoE party duels.

This is a very good suggestion. Various classes and monsters should have different defenses and we also need tools to break through those defenses. In BG2 we had to deal with enemies that had magic resistance, high AC, high saving throws, a plethora of arcane and divine protective spells, etc. Only a few had everything but almost everyone had something. So often we had to breach their defenses before we could CC or harm them. That's what PoE combat should look like and a careful redesign of wizard class could be a step in the right direction.

 

You (and I) can hope all you like, but Pillars is never gonna be that kind of game.

 

Best we can hope for to come out of this thread is for Obsidian to (at least) buff up the Wizard Class a little.

 

"Best we can hope for", indeed. I can't find the quote, but there is a recent one from Mr. Sawyer talking about how much fun everyone had with the latest Obsidian play through. I haven't coded or scripted for the greater part of a decade. Getting my modding abilities back up to speed is going to be rough work.

[ctn2003]

good idea

[Lephys]

I posted it it in Shevek's thread so the start maybe out of context, but here

 

Quote

The thing that absolutely destroys PoE combat for me is the lack of hard counters, interesting and overwhelming spells and spell combos, and the puzzle like nature (with multiple solutions) of some encounters.

Even IWDs which didn't had so much hard counters and puzzle like battles (and as such were more boring than BG2) still had the overwhelming spell combos that could change the battle on the spot.

 

I agree that the spells could be a bit more interesting (or rather, that more interesting ones could be sprinkled in to season the spell pool we currently have to draw from), but, I'm sorry... hard counters are relatively lame (they're interesting, but at the bottom of the "most interesting combat mechanics" list), and puzzle-like battles are available in PoE's combat design.

 

I'm sorry, but if I have to choose between using one Wizard spell to counter some big crazy effect, and using all party abilities at my disposal to collectively mitigate some huge/scary effect, I'm going to choose the latter every single time. If some combo maneuver effectively counters that spell or ability, then so be it. But it's infinitely more fun to actually orchestrate that combo, than to "figure out" how/when to cast the spell whose effect is "counter that other mean spell."

 

That being said, I'm not talking about simple effects. "Oh no, your Deflection was reduced! I cast Boost Reflection, so I've countered that effect!", or "Oh no, you've been poisoned! I healed you of poison, thereby countering that effect!". I'm talking about more substantial things, like immunities, stacks of effects, "your whole party's effed if you don't counter this in the next 5 seconds" stuff, etc.

 

Puzzle-like combat needs to be intuitive and tactical. If a boss launches out little fire elemental seeker bombs, you should have oodles of options for making that a less than optimally-effective attack (and, thereby, a waste of that boss's time), than just "Oh, cast the big AoE Banish, thereby completely negating that whole ability!". I'd rather have to shield certain people from fire, or Charm one to cause it to detonate some other ones, and/or spike my allies' defenses so that the little guys don't do much damage (compared to what they could have), etc.

 

Anywho... I do think there could be some much more interesting spells and effects. The vast majority of them seem to simply affect various mechanical combat factors and values attached to one or more creatures/characters in combat, and that's it. Which, that's a lot of playroom, but it DOES kinda make regular attacks and abilities not much different from magic and spells and such. I just think they need to take the current craziest spells and abilities they have, and keep going from there.

 

Maybe one that tethers you to another enemy of your choosing, such that any damage dealt to you deals 50% of that damage to the tethered foe. Oh, biggun wants to smash my Fighter, and I can't get to that mage on the back line? The harder you hit me, the more danger that Mage is gonna be in. It would be raw damage, too. Pre DT/DR damage. My armor blocks 10 damage? If the enemy mage ALSO has 10DT, then so be it. If not? Too bad.

 

Or, some support spells that cause damage of a certain type ("elemental" damage -- not slashing, piercing, etc.) to restore Stamina and a small bit of Health. Or, even just something that produces a beneficial buff effect when a character is stricken by a certain damage type or negative effect, etc. "For every point of Deflection that's missing, gain a point of Accuracy."

 

Even those are just pretty basic/tame ideas, and not that crazy. But, the point is, they DO something different than what some other attack or ability does. They still affect the same things -- accuracy, defense, damage, etc. -- but they WORK in an interesting fashion.

 

Maybe we should just fire up another (as I think there's been one in the past) spell-idea thread? And post the types of spells and effects we believe the game is lacking? AND the types of spells/effects that we think are pretty interesting. For example, I think a great spell is the one (can't remember if it's Wizard or Druid) that essentially hurls a giant rock boulder at someone, but if you strike a wall with it instead of a person, it shatters into rock shrapnel and deals AoE piercing damage. That might be useful.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Lephys

[Formal Foreign Forum Fool]

The beta only shows a small portion of the game.  The spells that are available in conjunction with the gear that we don't have yet is indicative of a test tube game style, rather than an actual chunk of game play.  Adding new spells, changing current ones, and having them available at hand picked levels for the average encounters respectively are all part of the plan and it's offensive to suggest the developers aren't aware of these things already.

[Dark_Ansem]

The beta only shows a small portion of the game.  The spells that are available in conjunction with the gear that we don't have yet is indicative of a test tube game style, rather than an actual chunk of game play.  Adding new spells, changing current ones, and having them available at hand picked levels for the average encounters respectively are all part of the plan and it's offensive to suggest the developers aren't aware of these things already.

 

Offensive or not, what the beta shows, the beta users comment on. since we don't have access to the full build!

[Mr. Magniloquent]

The beta only shows a small portion of the game.  The spells that are available in conjunction with the gear that we don't have yet is indicative of a test tube game style, rather than an actual chunk of game play.  Adding new spells, changing current ones, and having them available at hand picked levels for the average encounters respectively are all part of the plan and it's offensive to suggest the developers aren't aware of these things already.

 

You are patently incorrect in your statement. Outside of the restricted narrative and areas, what you are seeing in the beta is the sum of PoE's systems. The exception would be towards the talent selection, as they were deliberately waiting to implement those. What's offensive is how many of the implementations are explicitly to Josh Sawyer's personal preferences, rather than to the expectations they sold this game on.

[Dark_Ansem]

 

The beta only shows a small portion of the game.  The spells that are available in conjunction with the gear that we don't have yet is indicative of a test tube game style, rather than an actual chunk of game play.  Adding new spells, changing current ones, and having them available at hand picked levels for the average encounters respectively are all part of the plan and it's offensive to suggest the developers aren't aware of these things already.

 

You are patently incorrect in your statement. Outside of the restricted narrative and areas, what you are seeing in the beta is the sum of PoE's systems. The exception would be towards the talent selection, as they were deliberately waiting to implement those. What's offensive is how many of the implementations are explicitly to Josh Sawyer's personal preferences, rather than to the expectations they sold this game on.

 

 

I would like Sawyer to make a statement here, in fact. this is true and unacceptable.

[archangel979]

 

 

The beta only shows a small portion of the game.  The spells that are available in conjunction with the gear that we don't have yet is indicative of a test tube game style, rather than an actual chunk of game play.  Adding new spells, changing current ones, and having them available at hand picked levels for the average encounters respectively are all part of the plan and it's offensive to suggest the developers aren't aware of these things already.

 

You are patently incorrect in your statement. Outside of the restricted narrative and areas, what you are seeing in the beta is the sum of PoE's systems. The exception would be towards the talent selection, as they were deliberately waiting to implement those. What's offensive is how many of the implementations are explicitly to Josh Sawyer's personal preferences, rather than to the expectations they sold this game on.

 

 

I would like Sawyer to make a statement here, in fact. this is true and unacceptable.

 

Small chance of that.

[Doppelschwert]

It's funny that people act like the whole design is only because of joshs preference. Like everyone at obsidian is like 'No josh, you can't do that, it goes against all our principles' and then josh is all like 'I don't care, I use my supreme decision power of being lead designer, MUAHAHAH' and then everyone has to accept fate.

I'm pretty sure they are still discussing stuff they do in their meetings without josh getting to dictate everything alone, being lead designer or not.

It's almost like in this song from pink, Dear Mr. President where she accuses the president for things that go wrong as if he gets to decide anything alone.

Edited November 18, 2014 by Doppelschwert

[archangel979]

It's funny that people act like the whole design is only because of joshs preference. Like everyone at obsidian is like 'No josh, you can't do that, it goes against all our principles' and then josh is all like 'I don't care, I use my supreme decision power of being lead designer, MUAHAHAH' and then everyone has to accept fate.

I'm pretty sure they are still discussing stuff they do in their meetings without josh getting to dictate everything alone, being lead designer or not.

It's almost like in this song from pink, Dear Mr. President where she accuses the president for things that go wrong as if he gets to decide anything alone.

Even if he does not have the last word on everything he is still one in charge and responsible for it so he is one to blame for each design that is worse than in IE games.

[Dark_Ansem]

but he does answer every now and then, right?

[archangel979]

but he does answer every now and then, right?

Maybe 1 per month in topics in beta forums. And maybe 1 per month makes a more general post about new things being added or changed.

[Doppelschwert]

Yeah, I would also enjoy to go to a forum where I'm constantly blamed for everything I do in order to justify my everyday work, especially if I'm supposed to be busy working on my job during chrunch time.

[Seari]

Yeah, well maybe if his designs weren't ****, he would get praised instead.

[Dark_Ansem]

Yeah, well maybe if his designs weren't ****, he would get praised instead.

 

it's not a matter of being bad or not. different design, different choices. but if you go crowdfunding, listen to the feedback. 

[Sensuki]

I cross-post most of the important posts in the RPGCodex thread, you could always check that if you feel like you're missing out.

[Captain Shrek]

Also, flaming people does not really help convince them that they should listen to you. I disagree with Josh (however inconsequentially) on many issues, but restrict my flaming to the Codex. 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Also, flaming people does not really help convince them that they should listen to you. I disagree with Josh (however inconsequentially) on many issues, but restrict my flaming to the Codex. 

 

 Neither does giving them four million dollars evidently. Perhaps the "Do not eviscerate the most prominent and beloved class of the IE games as well as their underlying magic system" was a stretch goal that we didn't quite pony up enough money for. Given that the kickstarter was presented as a rejection of the last >10 years of cRPG design, you'd think that clause would not be necessary. Caveat emptor!

 

While I created this thread in an earnest attempt to be constructive, the descent into cynical commiseration was too strong. I've given Obsidian the benefit of the doubt, and even credit before it was earned. It was only until the beta that I turned sour. Patches show improvement and help me oscillate back to hopeful trepidation, but I no longer feel that the gloves should be kept on. The clock is ticking. Ultimately, it's Obsidian's reputation on the line. If their own choir won't sing their chorus--the broader and more skeptical gaming community will be nothing but venom.

[Captain Shrek]

Not the first time when a dev decided not to listen to their audience. I have had the exact same thing happening with DA2. When the board pointed out that most of their decisions were going to turn the game into a complete and utter clickfest, they decided to put finger up their.. ears and shout lalalalala. 

[Dark_Ansem]

we might also be getting ahed of ourselves. maybe they listen and implement, but they don't communicate.

MAYBE, eh. this is just me having faith, no logical basis.