Diversity of Spells, an issue for devs?

[Naith1]

Hi everybody. I'm not having an access to BB, but what I see and hear is that there are limited types of casting spells. I mean we probably haven't got much of charming spells, alteration (sleep?) or illusion and necromancy spells, what definately limits our tactical possibilities. If so, shouldn't it be an issue to press on devs?

 

Correct me if I'am wrong guys.

[archangel979]

There are these spells but not on wizards. They are given to other classes like the Cipher. Wizards are boring direct damage casters.

 

I am sad about this. During KS, I thought there would be real class diversity and new classes. But it seems their plan was to take away Wizard specializations from IE games and turn them into new classes. So we actually got much less than in IE games, not similar.

Edited November 14, 2014 by archangel979

[Elzarath]

There are these spells but not on wizards. They are given to other classes like the Cipher. Wizards are boring direct damage casters.

 

So we actually got much less than in IE games, not similar.

I'm confused. Do you mean there are less spells than IE or same type / amount of spells but just spread across different classes?

[Flayeriv]

From what I've seen, basically grab all of the spells from other IE games, and then spread them over four classes instead of two.

[Elzarath]

Thanks man. Sounds alright to me. The other classes might be more viable then IE games where it was a bit wizard or nothing (at least in terms of power).

[archangel979]

Thanks man. Sounds alright to me. The other classes might be more viable then IE games where it was a bit wizard or nothing (at least in terms of power).

No it wasn't. Other spellcasters were very cool and useful (well druid was a bit weak in BG1, but got to full power in BG2; I used to solo with werewolf druid and combined casting with Greater Werewolf form to win combat). 

 

Now wizards are like a retarded brother of the IE wizard while other classes got some of their cool spells. As far as I care they should have common spells on multiple classes to increase spell choices. I don't mind Cipher having sleep or charm person if wizard has it as well. Classes don't need to have all unique spells for their class. 

[Elzarath]

Eh, I didn't say the other casters weren't cool or useful, I said they weren't as powerful.

 

Besides the point, I still think it's a good idea to increase the usefulness/effectiveness of other classes by giving them some spells.

[Flayeriv]

I'd kind of agree with some magic spell cross over, it allows you to reliably repeat a tactic.

Druids have summon natures ally? Guess what! Wizards have summon monster!
Clerics have healing? Druids also have healing!
Need a magic weapon buff? Wizard, Cleric, get over here.
 

If everyone is specialised too much you can specialise out of a job. BUT, I'm not a beta tester, so I don't know how well it may in fact have been implemented.

[Formal Foreign Forum Fool]

Wizards are specialized as ranged magic damage dealers.  If you think that they are lacking in some department then you're trying to hit two birds with one stone.  If you want healing get a priest.  If you want a tank get a fighter.  If you want ranged physical get a ranger.  If you want ranged magic damage get a wizard.

The argument I'm seeing here is from people who want everything wrapped up into a bundle.  I see your contention but that goes against the design goals of this game.

[archangel979]

Wizards are specialized as ranged magic damage dealers.  If you think that they are lacking in some department then you're trying to hit two birds with one stone.  If you want healing get a priest.  If you want a tank get a fighter.  If you want ranged physical get a ranger.  If you want ranged magic damage get a wizard.

The argument I'm seeing here is from people who want everything wrapped up into a bundle.  I see your contention but that goes against the design goals of this game.

No lol, you comment goes against goals of the game. Goal being a IE inspired game, not a MMORPG inspired game like you just described.

What we want is more than a ranged magic damage dealing class as IE games had. No class in IE was described with one thing and that was the power of those game unlike what came after which gave one and only one function to each class and called it "evolution". I call it crap.

[rjshae]

Mmm... I thought a strong point of the PoE Wizard was going to be their flexibility? At least that's what I seem to recall from an earlier update. It'd be a shame for them not to have IE spells like Confusion or Fear.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Wizards are specialized as ranged magic damage dealers.  If you think that they are lacking in some department then you're trying to hit two birds with one stone.  If you want healing get a priest.  If you want a tank get a fighter.  If you want ranged physical get a ranger.  If you want ranged magic damage get a wizard.

The argument I'm seeing here is from people who want everything wrapped up into a bundle.  I see your contention but that goes against the design goals of this game.

 

That's a very droll and sycophantic statement. The arguments arising on these forums relate to major deviations from essential IE fundamentals. The wizard class is one of the most egregious examples. Many more abound. The shelled-out MMO class design is a violation of both the explicit promise and implicit goals of PoE. PoE was about forsaking the tripe that has become of the modern cRPG since 2002(ish), and recovering what was lost. Delivering poor interpretation of 4th Edition D&D is not what they claimed to be offering during the kickstarter drive. This is what the contentions are born from.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Mmm... I thought a strong point of the PoE Wizard was going to be their flexibility? At least that's what I seem to recall from an earlier update. It'd be a shame for them not to have IE spells like Confusion or Fear.

 

To be fair, they do have Confusion Bewildering Spectacle. The effect lasts a whole 10 seconds, so....go nuts. The same applies to Fear Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, though none of the spells with the "Terrified" status effect appear to be working presently. What has caused the wizard to lose their flexibility are the total absence of all the Illusion spells, summons, contingencies, sequencers, wish spells, useful defensive spells, etc. There is also the aspect in that different status effects explicitly did different things in the IE games, whereas in PoE they are degrees of the same effect. This is being discussed at length in my other thread here.

[Flayeriv]

A class of AOE spells, not necessarily damage, would be relatively awesome, but as the entirety of the wizard class? Wizards mean Arcane, and typically books and study as well. Exactly what 'arcane' means differs but it's generally synonymous with wizard. The idea that arcane and wizard means ranged attack damage... well, that sounds like a specialist wizard to me.

[archangel979]

Well confusion in IE lasted minimum 7 rounds which turns into 42 seconds. Since all actions are faster in PoE, 42 seconds is too long for PoE. So 10 seconds + what you get from high Intellect (about 5seconds more?!) makes the overall time not that bad. And it is a lvl 2 spell which is much better than in IE.

Now I wonder why is Sleep in PoE lvl 4 (or was it 5) and also lasts 10s only if this lvl 2 spell is 10s base.

 

Apparently there is a lvl 4 wizard spell Confusion that is same as this lvl 2 but lasts only 6s ?!

Edited November 18, 2014 by archangel979

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Well confusion in IE lasted minimum 7 rounds which turns into 42 seconds. Since all actions are faster in PoE, 42 seconds is too long for PoE. So 10 seconds + what you get from high Intellect (about 5seconds more?!) makes the overall time not that bad. And it is a lvl 2 spell which is much better than in IE.

Now I wonder why is Sleep in PoE lvl 4 (or was it 5) and also lasts 10s only if this lvl 2 spell is 10s base.

 

Apparently there is a lvl 4 wizard spell Confusion that is same as this lvl 2 but lasts only 6s ?!

 

Right, but compare those values to this table. Anyone wearing armor, or not dual-wielding for that matter is going to have a hard time making more than 2 or 3 attacks. If it's a graze (base 45% chance against a roughly equivalent opponent), then they may not even have time to make a single attack! With grazes, DT, and DR, you're not even  well assured that those few precious attacks will even amount to anything. The lack of friendly-fire mitigation also means that you're likely going to have to keep your own characters at a distance, then move them in closer once this effect is applied. That movement time shaves off duration that could immediately be capitalized on in the IE games. This is also one area where engagement is a major factor, in that effects the amount of time you can take advantage of any effects you apply.

 

That was a mouthful. As you can see this game is extraordinarily nuanced, and making paper comparisons about potential ApM vs Duration are limited in their usefulness.  In general, the durations are far too short, for effects that are often not very distinctive or useful. It's just one more part of the "Great Wizard Menace" this game seeks to exorcise.

[archangel979]

Grazes in this case mean nothing because in IE games graze would be a successful save vs spell which would mean 0 effect. And you cannot look at it by number or attacks. Someone having a slow weapon and having slow armor is already much less dangerous to your party than someone doing damage often. You should not confuse those, but those that are more dangerous. Slow ones with good armor, better to give them armor penalty or give your guys more accuracy so you have greater chance to do a critical hit. 

 

I am not saying 10s is good enough, but I don't think we need 42 seconds base time, from what I seen all combat is done by then. 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Grazes in this case mean nothing because in IE games graze would be a successful save vs spell which would mean 0 effect. And you cannot look at it by number or attacks. Someone having a slow weapon and having slow armor is already much less dangerous to your party than someone doing damage often. You should not confuse those, but those that are more dangerous. Slow ones with good armor, better to give them armor penalty or give your guys more accuracy so you have greater chance to do a critical hit. 

 

I am not saying 10s is good enough, but I don't think we need 42 seconds base time, from what I seen all combat is done by then. 

 

Not true. At least for D&D 3rd edition, spell DCs could be much better than 50% failure. Right now in PoE, that's pretty much the base rate of failure for the wizard class. For the 2nd edition IE games, I truthfully cannot approximate it in general. It varies wildly. Weapon/armor speed/recovery times are very essential to determining how long durations should be. Spells with duration function over time, so what can be accomplished over that time is fundamental to getting it balanced. This is all the more nuanced in that attacking faster is not necessarily better once DT & DR have been involved in the equation. Couple those influences with having to keep at a distance to avoid friendly fire (time lost in movement), and then engagement barriers to jumping right in to seize any opportunity, and well...durations that PoE are using are just too short.

 

I'm not arguing for 42 seconds for all spells. Even in the rebalanced figures I made, spells were assigned a duration range like damage, then linearlly scaled with the spells level. A level 1 spell had a base duration of 8-16 seconds with 4 seconds being added for every level. So a level 3 spell would have a base duration range of 16-32 seconds. With graze, DT & DR, recovery times, engagement, and friendly fire considerations--those values are much more reasonable. I encourage you to check out that excel file. It was meticulous.